Change of a Dress, the Sequel

Who can I petition to complain that more than two weeks of not bingeing does not erase completely the effects of nearly two weeks of bingeing?

Of course I know this, but today I got to confront proof of it in my bathroom mirror.

Tired of slobbing around in the same maxidress, I put on a dress I bought in about 45 seconds flat in a Next in Oxford on the first day of my trip to England. (My luggage had not arrived, and I was looking for something supercheap and could not – having already binged off and on for a little over three days – face trying anything on, or at least, anything that might suggest what size I really was.)

It's not the kind of dress I normally would buy – a scoop neck, cap sleeves, weird elastic waist (but not, in my humble opinion, of the frumptastic variety). I hated buying it; hated that the first thing I've bought in ages is not anything I really wanted; hated that I would own anything that would remind me, as if I needed any reminding, of bingeing. And most of all, I hated knowing when I bought it that I would not want to go shopping in London, something I usually love. I had not yet binged on the day that I bought the dress, at about 5 pm, but I later did.

When I put on the dress this afternoon, as I was getting ready to meet a friend for dinner, first I focused on my stomach.

In my crazy head, it is a scarily short leap from "ugh, look at my stomach" and "I don't think my waist is ever going to come back"  to "I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life" – the last one being a feeling my body converts directly to "I'm hungry; let's binge."

But I took a deep breath. A friend had texted me this morning that she binged last night and was feeling tortured. "So tired of starting over," she wrote. I know the feeling, and at the moment, I feel lucky that the mere idea of having to is acting as a pretty strong deterrent to destructive eating. 

At the Greek restaurant I ordered something I'd never usually allow myself to order – something I wanted (the souvlaki platter), instead of my usual dish that I know both fills me up and doesn't make me want to binge. I spent part of the meal arguing with myself about leaving some over, because it was pork and oil and feta and a yogurty dressing and rice and more oil in the rice.

As I walked home I had a brief moment of panic. What if I'm hungry later, even after I ate all that? What if this stomach never goes away? What if I'm alone alone alone alone alone...

Deep breath.

Day eighteen.