Here's An Evening Dark With Shame / Throw It on the Fire

Warning: Do not read the following if you are as tired of reading of bingeing as I am of writing about it (in other words: soveryfuckingtired)

Leaf by leaf, page by page
Throw this book away
All the sadness, all the rage
Throw this book away...

I wake up at friends' in the country Sunday exhausted and feeling – there's only one way to describe it -- unwilling. I do not want to make healthy choices. I do not want to think about how terrified I am that my clothes won't fit. I do not want to think about alternatives to eating.

I do not want to do anything but eat and eat and eat -- basically, a more extreme version of what I've been doing all weekend. Which, I might add, I did on top of having not been my usual (fairly) restrained self during the week, doing minimal exercise, and having binged multiple times in Turkey the week before.

I have breakfast: porridge, but then I pick at leftover blueberries afterward, which may not be high calorie but for me is a slippery slope. I'm incapable of picking like a normal person). Then I stand in the bathroom, vaguely unsettled, wondering: What is wrong with me? Usually when I binge, particularly multiple times, I am keen to get back on the straight and narrow. What terrifies me on Sunday is that I just don't care. I know that if I binge I'll be starting a week's army work on a binge – and I have trouble recovering from binges until I get back to a place where I can control my food (in other words, home). Which could mean another week's worth of bingeing...

I put on my gym kit for the car ride home, planning to hit the gym between arrival in London and my train to the army job, since I'd have not quite enough time to go home anyway. (To be honest, I am also happy to be wearing trousers with an elastic waist – my jeans already were frightfully tight on the ride up Friday, and I'd certainly done nothing to ease that over the weekend.)

I eat an apple and doze (and drool) in the car. Then I have some granola. There may well be another snack in there. Getting messier by the minute. By shortly after 2 pm, when we arrived in London, I am hungry enough to be grumpy and tired enough that everything seemed like too much effort.

I'd originally planned to get one of my go-to M&S meals, but I immediately spy an Itsu when walking into Canary Wharf and grab a sushi box and a sushi roll that may or may not have had mayonnaise in it. Both had calorie counts next to them that I ignore, something I haven't done (binge or no binge) in at least three years.

I unwrap the sushi as I'm waiting for my credit card transaction to clear.

"Are you hungry, ma'am?" says the guy at the counter in heavily accented English.
Maybe Indian – to be honest, I am not paying attention.

I hate being called ma'am. I also hate it when people ask me obvious questions. No, dumbass, I'm eating this right here, right now, because actually the thought of food makes me sick but I thought you might like to see someone actually consume your products.

He tries again. "Have you been working today?"

I stare at him, hopefully blankly, wondering if I don't answer if he'll perhaps assume I don't understand him or maybe don't speak English. No such luck.

"Have you had that one before?" he asks, indicating the pack of sushi.

Oh dear God, leave me alone and let me eat in peace.

I eat all the sushi in about 45 seconds flat. I look at my phone and see my friend S has texted to say she's in New York and has gone running all the way down the pier and now is on the Staten Island Ferry for the first time. She knows I have binged in Turkey and wonders how I am. I know I should write her back – that maybe it will break the binge cycle -- but I don't want to. I don't want to help myself.

Instead I proceed to eat 2 cupcakes with buttercream icing, 3 pieces of cake (1 Pret carrot and 2 from elsewhere), and 2 doughnuts. The scary thing is that I could still eat more.

Canary Wharf seems like a labyrinth and I am exhausted. I've now eaten too much to go to the gym, and anyway, the long interchange at Bank I'd have to do with luggage, bloated and in the heat, just seems like way too much effort.

It is nearing 3 pm. I have to catch a train from Waterloo at 6:15 pm. It occurs to me that I could easily see myself eating all afternoon, but that I cannot. At a certain point even I will be too full to move, and that there will have to be some other activity. With the sort of practicality that usually does not go with bingeing, I realize I need to somehow get to Waterloo before the too-full-point happens. I wonder if I can wait until I get to Waterloo to eat anything else.

I stumble out into the sunshine, look across the Thames, and want to cry. I can see people in restaurants casually lingering over plates of food, something I cannot imagine ever doing. I wonder which restaurant I should hit next. My life flashes before my eyes. I picture myself a couple of weeks or a month from now, looking back at today as the turning point – the day when I jumped off the bingeing cliff and couldn't find a parachute. Should I cry or sit myself down at a restaurant? Possibly I could or should do both.

Instead I tell myself that I can still go eat afterwards but that I must text S. first.

Where do all the secrets live
They travel in the air
You can smell them when they burn
They travel in the air

I write back to S., saying I am in mid-binge and can't get a grip. My phone rings. It's her. I debate not answering it.

"I didn't know if you'd pick up," she says when she hears my voice. "Sometimes I do that."

I feel this great rush of gratitude. We chat for 20 minutes. The afternoon still stretches out before me. What am I going to do?

"Even if you went to the gym for 15 minutes and walked on the treadmill you might feel better," she says.

I don't want to move. The interchange at Bank. The heat. I don't wanna, I want to whine. We chat a bit more. I'm already in my gym clothes and I'm going to have to change into work clothes at some point (and in some place – would I really want to do that on the train?) I realize if I get a move on I can maybe squeeze in a half hour at the gym. It will barely work off a doughnut, but it will both fill time and prevent me from eating further.

It's hot and I feel resentful schlepping my bag up various subway stairs. I get to the gym and I feel slightly ill. I trudge slowly on the treadmill for literally about five minutes, then coax myself onto the cross-trainer, where I knock out a half hour. Not my whole workout, but not bad.

I can barely squeeze into my dress and I try not to think about what's in my suitcase that probably won't fit. I think that the dress does still fit, and that I have the power: That I can decide it will never again be tighter than it is that moment, or I can carry on eating and never wear it again. The choice is mine.

I decide I can have a snack and dinner as I usually would, and I grab appropriate ones in Waterloo and eat them on the train. S. has pointed out that every minute I hang on takes me farther away from the binge. It is 7 pm when I eat my dinner, not because I'm hungry but because I want to eat. I see the train snacks and briefly debate. Then I look at the time: Barely 4 hours post-binge, but if I stop eating, I have a decent chance of functioning at half-capacity or better tomorrow, as opposed to completely food-addled and useless.

I can see the binge receding, like a runner in the distance. Maybe tomorrow I can run away from it, but for the moment, walking or even trudging away is enough.