Limbo

It could go either way.

I'm sitting high on a week of successful restriction. Old habits are like old friends, once you have them back you remember how good it feels to have them. But I'm more aware now too. I know I can't push myself too far. I'm not playing How Low Can I Go. There's no point running myself into the ground. I'm in the middle of a fucking degree here, I need my brain to work for me, I need the energy to concentrate on my academic work, else I risk failing at the one thing I've ever been good at. I also have sufficient of a social life that I can't risk going too hard and being noticed. If I start blacking out from blood sugar lows when I'm with friends, well, it's just not a situation I want to encounter. When all's said and done, I don't actually feel the need to starve myself into submission. It's enough to have control. It's enough to be able to set my own limits.

Fuck, it feels good.

I've been waiting for the inevitable moment when I screw up, when I push too low and enter a dangerous head space, or when I slip up and shoot too high and undo all my progress. It could go either way. A week is usually how long I can manage being good before I fail somehow. But it doesn't have to be that way. I can sit here happily in limbo. It's not completely healthy, I know, to do what I'm doing, but if it keeps me sane, if it keeps me in control, then it's the lesser of many evils. If I start getting good losses then I'll quite happily ease off a little, even. This week just proved I still had it in me. I'd been beginning to think it was all some freakish dream, all that strength of will I had before. I'd been beginning to think I was still my high weight, deep down, and the slightly-less-fat view in the mirror was just an illusion, another facet of my body dysmorphia. But I got up the guts to get back on the scales last weekend, and - miracle of miracles - apparently I'm the same weight as I was in January. I don't know how the fuck I managed that, given the disgusting way I've been eating and the complete lack of consistent exercise, but I'm too relieved to dare questioning it. Granted, it's still a good 20lb above my lowest weight. I'd like to knock off two stone, at least, but that's okay. It's a goal. I can work with goals. One of the reasons why everything went to shit last summer was that I met my goal. I met it and it didn't solve a fucking thing. It was a hard fact to face up to, which is why I haven't for so long. Even in my success I still managed to feel like a failure. And isn't that the fucking story of my life.