#an exercise in purging

[avoidantrecovery]

many many moons ago, when i was still in school, a boy confessed to me. or maybe he confessed to me, the thing is i don't think i'll ever know.

this avoidant thing is a real bitch, and quite frankly i don't know how others do it. when i wake up, feeling a bit less crazy than usual, i just have to remember this event and yeah, no normal person does this, but also idk.

we were on a school trip and i was smitten, okay? the kind of crush you can only have when you're seventeen. but at the same time, remember i am already in depth of my avoidance. in the depths of not talking about myself or connecting with others genuinely. i don't talk about this crush, he is a secret i harbour in the deepest depths of my consciousness, you couldn't have tortured his name out of me at that point. i couldn't even admit this crush to myself, even my diary is devoid of any mention of him. but when i saw him in school, my head would turn towards him like a freaking sunflower towards the sun, whilst hoping i was not too obvious about it all. did i mention that i sat next to him at the time, we shared a double desk lol.

so, fall turned into winter and nothing much changed. despite sharing a desk, we were not close and only exchanged a few polite words every day. every now and then he'd rope me into small conversations, but i was convinced he was just polite or perhaps it was just some ploy to get me to get my guard down/humiliate myself. (this was the peer-abuse trauma still reverberating). in fact i would try to observe if he was talking to others this way, too. and though i never saw him do it, i just shrugged it off. i may have had a crush on him, but there was no way it could happen the other way around.

winter turned into early spring and our school trip finally came. it was a week-long school exchange to a neighbouring country. half way through the week, we went to the morning assembly of our partner school with our exchange partners and all we had to do is sit around since we didn't speak their language. anyway, suddenly, this boy was on the stage with his partner and locked eyes with me and said something in their language. i just sat there looking kind of out of place and then the moment passed. i never understood what he actually said or whether he said it to me or just my general direction. my exchange partner, a really sweet girl, tapped me on my shoulders and was like, "i think..., i think he just said he likes you". and the only way i can explain what happened next, because i was shaken to the core and scared, is that trauma brain kicked in, because i just said "oh no, i don't think so" and that was that. regardless of whether that was a weird way to confess or not, in front of everyone, or i misunderstood the situation, that moment felt like death to me, that i narrowly managed to escape. also, strangely enough he never brought it up again either.

it's only recently i have been able to put together what i think happened (at least on my end). i've mentioned a couple of times how, much earlier than that, when i was a new kid in sixth grade, my classmates nearly drowned me. well, what i didn't mention is how it happened, it involved a lot of gaslighting me into believing they were my friends, a lot of lying and pretending essentially. and the day it happened, i had already decided that these classmates of mine were bad and that i would be very careful around them. ironically enough it was also a school trip, a daytrip to a pool. anyway, they spent the whole day trying to get back into my good graces, because i was fine playing on my own and just doing my own thing, ignoring them, i was grayrocking them pretty much.

but then this little hopeful voice in me kind of came up and said, but what if..., what if they actually finally want to be your friend? that voice was good and brave and hopeful and essentially it's that voice that we all have, that pushes us over the edge when we need that extra push to be brave, you know? and it told me how nice it would be to have friends to play with and not be alone. it told me to put my doubts aside and just try. i told them i wasn't a strong swimmer, and they insisted that that was no issue and they'd take me to the deep end with them no issue. and so i went with them. and just when i took that leap of faith, they left me alone for dead, nearly drowning me. it nearly cost me my life. and i think from that day onwards, that voice has been quiet. the one that makes us take a leap, you know?

and so i think when my crush locked eyes with me and said whatever it is he said, i was essentially (without being aware of it in the moment obv.) in the same situation, the kind that needs you to be vulnerable, have hope, be brave and take that leap of faith. and instead i felt like i was dying (drowning?) and just wanted to get out of the situation as fast as i could, like that kind of situation that needs you to be brave is also a trauma trigger. and i was convinced that it was just some ploy to trick me or humiliate me or maybe he lost a bet or sth, and i was not a dummy, i wasn't going to fall for that.

another moment that i remember from that trip is the whole class being invited to this youth center type place to hang out in the evening. since we were all scattered across the little town, his exchange partner who happened to live close to mine, offered to drive us but when they came to pick us up, he asked whether i wanted to watch a movie at his exchange partners house instead. i remember saying, we can't just watch a movie together, the others will wonder where we are. i didn't say no lol. but we ended up going to the youth center place. but the thing is, he never asked me watch movies when we were back home, why there? and again, he never brought it up again.

anyway, this is a story that has just been knocking about in my head recently when dealing with limerence and trauma and all this. i guess i'm writing it in an effort to "talk about me" from the quote i linked above. and since i don't have anyone i could possibly tell this story irl, typing it out will do for now. i'm kind of hoping this will purge it out of my system hopefully.

fun fact, because of the kind of job he does now, i had the pleasure of being jumpedscared by him on a billboard near my place. i also looked him up recently in the hopes of finding some anti-limerence information, so my digust (or disinterest) would finally help me put this chapter to rest. i went in thinking i will find some information that will just make me think ewwwww, but instead i folded as soon as i opened his insta. i folded like the weak bitch that i am, what can i say, he still has great arms. 🤷🏾‍♀️

if you've read this far, i am so sorry 😭😭

[la3-3yla]

[b1ttercr0ww]

Gente, eu tô perguntando porque sou muito jumenta mesmo, na verdade meu QI deve ser menor que 40. Vômito não quebra a cetose não né? Tô inchadassa aqui e não sei se começo um NF ou se dou uma miada pra acalmar a cabeça

[whyeatgirlie]

So today I ran 8 miles which burned 456 cals and I only ate my omad today that was only 127 cals and already 12 hours into my fast:) all ima say is I’m going to sleep good tonight 😭💗

[portraitsofpast]

i miss 2021 and 2022 so much even though i didnt do anything and i was so lonely. but i walked around more than anyone else

[suffercerebral]

me having gone to bed at 6 am every day for the past week and generally spiraling mentally while rotting in bed waking up this morning: a 4 mile hike in the heat is a really good idea right now, and while we're at it let's start like 3 art projects

[sweet-angel555]

yea my first day (again)

heyhey. sooo I ate an apple, but then my teacher brought cinnamon rolls and I said "no thanks I ate at home" but he knows of my 3d and so he said "don't do this to me again, u know ill have to call ur mom". so I ate it, after that I wanted to go to the toilet, u know why, but every restroom was full:< and I dont wanna do it in front of the little ones. then I went home, I almost fainted in bus, but a guy gave me his water bottle. at home I did an workout and i had to eat dinner (two toast with cream cheese). yea thats it.

in total: 60+150+180=

390

at least i think so (im dumb lol) but what i know its to much

[songs-ofa-dyingbird]

I eat too much :(

I go shopping and forget to be anorexic istg

[avoidantrecovery]

💌 #4 (the time mr. crush gave me a small econ 101 lesson)

mr crush was somewhat of a leftist, and i mean a real antifa, votes for the green party (when that still meant something) kind of leftist. he was also solidly middle class with the capacity to be as insufferably annoying as many white leftists can. however, guess who showed up relentlessly each time nazi "demonstrations"(🙄) were held in nearby towns and cities to counterprotest and throw rocks at them? my antifa classmates for whom i'm still grateful for tbh. (also they could afford it, if anything went wrong and they ended up arrested, i just know mommy or daddy could probably get them out). either way, as a black girl with no black community to speak of, they were next best thing.

one day, not sure how the topic came up, he asked me if i knew which part of the country was the richest. i think we had just had a politics & economy class, maybe that was the context. anyway, me, surprised that my crush was addressing me (!), composed myself and thought for a moment. then mentioned a place that was known for lots of wealthy people and celebrities hanging out. he said no, so i kept thinking and couldn't come up with anything else. so he just said it's here, here where we live. and that kind of took me by surprise, because while i knew the villages and suburbs around us were chock-full of bankers who worked in the city, and we had some industry, it had never occurred to me. the place was full of old money (not for me obviously LOL). there were some places further into the rural areas that had mansions and even castles, but i always just assumed they were historic buildings. you would never guess by just looking, it didn't (superficially speaking) look like wealth. anyway, i just exclaimed "wow, i would never have guessed that, but i guess it makes sense." we never talked much, but when we did, he always told me something interesting that shifted my world-view a bit. we were also seventeen and i feel like so many things have the capacity to shift your world-view at seventeen lol.

[delicateimage]

Hey girlies update time… I’ve been sent to a clinic for my weight and it’s been really stressful and my life is kinda falling apart lol there’s defiantly good aspects to it but ughhh I’m like :( bc my diets had to change so much and I feel so unproductive now and I’m really scared about gaining weight but they’d said I’d like die or whatever if I didn’t which um. I genuinely feel so disgusting heavy and sick and disgusting and DISGUSTIGN eww and my disordered eating brain is coming back in full force after silently controlling me for like nearly years at this point and it’s all so much. the hardest thing about this is that I don’t want to gain weight at all and particularly I don’t really even care to live anymore. I’m scared everyday I’ll fall deeper and deeper back into disordered eating I’ll get lonelier and lonelier I’ll get fatter and fatter I’ll lose everything I’ve ever built for myself… ugh this is a mess but ong.

[mikeyswishes]

think ive moved on from whatever i was doing before n am now ana b/p subtype (exercise purger 🤪) live laugh love

[sk3l3t0n1n]

i hate myself so fucking much

[whsprings]

idk how I've managed to get rid of 95% of my ed symptoms/behaviors and still relapse.

[manlethotline]

To anyone wondering if it's worth it to tear down fascist posters or whatever. I spent a few months last year engaged in silent battle with another student at my school who was putting anti trans stickers up everywhere. I had it down to a system where every night I would walk the five block radius they went up in, and tear down all the ones I could reach, and use a stick to put duct tape over the others. Like, within hours of the stickers going up, I would have already purged the whole zone. I knew the basic schedule of whoever put them up based on when and where the stickers appeared. I probably could have found them in person if I'd wanted to. And I told all my classmates and friends what the stickers looked like and got them to rip them down too. And after a few months of this, the stickers slowed, and then stopped forever.

My point is, a lot of this fashy or right wing stuff is one local weirdo. And if you pay attention, and do a little light organizing with your friends, you can basically make their efforts into a giant sisyphisean exercise in misery. You control your streets!

[avoidantrecovery]

💌 #3

the summer break between 11th and 12th grade i kept hoping i‘d bump into mr crush and then it actually happened. now, why was i so nonchalant when this actually happened?? i was on the train to the city when we were forced off because it had broken down. i waited for the next train, got on and there he was, he had gotten on the exact same carriage as me.

and me, using up probably several years worth of nonchalance, noticed that he had a new hair cut and complimented him on it. why? i don‘t know it just slipped out, i didn‘t know him like that like that, but you know what had to be said had to be said. he looked good, okay?? 😭 i can’t remember what he said in response, but i remember him looking sort of bashful, but i think that’s just my imagination. we exchanged some words and i asked him where he was travelling to because he had some kind of duffle bag on him. he mentioned he was visiting his brother in the town that happened to be the town i was born in and i told him as much. then i wished him a nice holiday, said bye and went to sit somewhere else. nonchalance out the wazoo lmao. and for what?? not sure what hit me, but idk.

what remains of that encounter is how calm i was. i was not nervous at all and it was so easy to talk to him. if only i could harness that level calm, even now. not him, but that calm, where did it come from?

[puppiegrll]

i need to get better at taking care of myself without help from a partner :/ i have a lot of decision paralysis and getting stuff done can be hard. yea having someone who helps and can make sure im gettin stuff done is nice, but i cant always depend on having someone, ive realised that now