Ten Days

I’m feeling more like myself today than I have since I left New York. I went and worked in a coffee shop this morning (well, technically the lounge at Equinox) and it helped a lot to be out and about instead of stuck in this tiny flat. I had convinced myself I’m not good at working in coffee shops, but maybe that’s just a story I tell myself. (That said, I wasn’t really writing – just doing other types of work. And I certainly couldn’t do an interview there.)

Then it was on to an individual therapy session, and finally to beading, which struck me as the perfect group therapy for Brits, because everyone can focus on slipping beads onto strings (it’s jewelry-making) and not have to make eye contact with each other while revealing deeply personal things. Though there wasn’t actually much revealed. I wonder if it’s intentional to the therapy that beading is a deeply difficult activity for perfectionists, of which most people with eating disorders are? (I like to say I’m a perfectionist but bad at it, but that’s because I like to make light of my flaws.) We all struggled to make choices, struggled whether ours were “good enough,” and agreed about the need for perfect symmetry. One of the women was fussy even about beads that were all supposed to be the same – she wanted the ones that were the most exactly the same. Can’t say I really rated the person running the session, and the whole thing just felt more like a summer camp arts and crafts session, except for the smoking breaks (I might be the only person in treatment who is not a smoker.)

Did a couple more hours of work in another coffee shop, and probably should have gone to a meeting, but I had a several-thousand page deposition I was lugging around, the weather was terrible, and I just couldn’t face it, in part because it was located in such a way that it would take me 45 minutes on the bus but only about 55 to walk, and neither sounded appealing.

Today marks 10 days of neither bingeing or restricting. If I’m honest I’m resentful about the amount of time I spent thinking about and dealing with food – it seems like for all that I should get to lose weight, though I know that’s not the name of the game here. I still haven’t quite surrendered to it yet – I’m ok with 500 or 600 and in some cases 700 calorie ready meals, but I can’t go above that, and so there are a couple of things I haven’t allowed myself to eat. And today I wanted Victoria sponge (anyone got any thoughts on who in London does the best?) and stood in Tesco, holding a box with two small servings in my hand. I paused. Was I allowed to eat dessert and still have my nightly yogurt? I wasn’t sure. I know the idea is that nothing terrible would happen if I had both, but still I couldn’t do it. Nor did I feel like I could buy it and wait until tomorrow to have it, and so I put it back. It will be there tomorrow, along, I hope, with the ability to stop worrying about it all so damn much. I know, I know; it’s only Day 10. It will come.