Wow. It's been a while.

Hey dearies. How've you been? It's been a long few months. I don't even know where to start. As of this moment I've been a legal adult for exactly 30 minutes, which is terrifying.

Knowledge Bowl started just before Christmas break. I'm on the dream team- three seniors, all incredibly gifted in one area or another, plus me. I'm the mascot or something. I dunno. The instructor is my favorite teacher, one I haven't had for years. To be honest though, she isn't anything like I remember. Nostalgia's a bitch. She's kind of a bitch different. She's not particularly good at her job either, but I'm just grousing. I really like my teammates and we've placed well the last few meets. The first one was actually the day after my surgery, and I remember dreaming that they made us run laps around a stadium-library thing while we answered but everything kept changing and people died and it was just weird.

Oh yeah, the surgery. I meant to tell ya'll about it but never got the chance. A few days before Christmas I had brain surgery which was, I assure you, tremendous fun. The first surgery had complications so I went back in on Christmas Day and had another one and the whole thing just sucked. I had some messed up dreams from the drugs they gave me though. Lol. With any luck the 15 lb. lifting restriction I've been on since then will be cancelled on Tuesday. I'm excited to start gym class again! :D

My anxiety has been pretty bad the last few months. Not panic attack and hyperventilating bad though, thank goodness. I tried waiting it out to see if it was stress-induced and would fade, but it hasn't, so my psychiatrist increased the dose on one of my meds. I've only been taking them for a few days, but I think it's making things worse. I cut again the other day, after 110 days (roughly). It was supposed to just be a few little ones to calm me down, but it ended up being a bunch of slashes across my upper arm and a half dozen or so on my forearm. They're pretty obvious and I hate wearing full length sleeves and I'll start gym tomorrow and gods I'm so fucking stupid. I saw the first little bit of blood and got carried away. (Trying not to be triggering here.) I was in my room and I didn't have a towel or anything so my arm was a complete mess, and I got blood on my pajamas and mattress. 

A few months ago I posted about an exchange student we have this year and the honestly pathetic crush I had on her. Well, I still do, and shocker, we actually talk to each other! (That sounds like bad sarcasm, but I'm serious: until recently I couldn't even look at her without feeling like my ribs were caving in. Bizarre sensation.) 

This is so hard. Everything's all jumbled up and I don't know what to say. Don't know what I'm saying.

I've stopped typing more times than I can count to bury my face in my pillow and explode with terrified excitement. What am I doing?!?

Thursday night C3 and I bought roses. I fed her some BS story about buying them for another friend whose boyfriend had been enough of a douche to break up with her the morning before Valentines Day, but the one I bought was for the exchange student. (I need a nickname for her. 'The exchange student' takes too long to type.) I went in to school early for Knowledge Bowl and then chickened out on giving it to her right before going in. Deciding to tape in to her locker anonymously I wandered over... and saw her standing right there. Naturally I did the brave thing by turning tail and hiding. Before we all left I stuck the rose to the "dumped" friend's locker to make her smile. She didn't really seem to care, so the whole thing was a bust. /sigh

ES and I started texting while I was in the hospital. We're both super awkward so we didn't talk. Actually, I mostly just ignored her at school. She probably thought I was a bipolar bitch! Anyways, we texted about all sorts of random shit until I found out she self-harms. This was difficult to hear. On one hand, it's just like the situation with former-anorexic K: I'm glad to have found someone who understands. It changes things from feeling like a messed-up, solo action/behavior/mindset to feeling like we're sharing some twisted secret. (Ugh this sounds like a 13 year old's diary. "Twisted secret?") On the other hand, she's a friend and someone I care about so hearing that she does such horrible things to herself is, well, horrible. It also brings up feelings of inadequacy. The things she's done to punish herself are so much more severe than anything I've done. If it were a competition she'd have won before I even began. I don't like that she's better at destroying herself than I am, and while I realize how screwy that thinking is I just don't care. At the same time, I know that if her methods left fewer or less visible marks I'd feel superior to her, in that respect at least. (Only in that respect, though. Near as I can tell she's damn good at just about everything. Not that I'm jealous or anything. *cue shifty eyes* ) At the Knowledge Bowl she told me that I had blood on my arm and I just panicked. I think she knew and I couldn't look at her and it was just shit.

I also found out that she has (what I think is called) bulimia with anorexic tendencies, though she denies having a problem. I caught her throwing up after a buffet lunch after Knowledge Bowl and we had a rather painful conversation through text afterwards. I basically told her to be careful and that I'd cover for her when necessary. This isn't what she needs right now but it's what she wants and holy fuck am I going to hate myself for this later. I cut again that night, just a bit. After we got back to school we skipped our last class and just hung out in the library. We talked and laughed and it was kind of surreal, both because it was the first one-on-one conversation we'd had, and because we both knew she'd been puking an hour before and it wasn't being discussed. I talked to Lady A the therapist after learning about the self harm, and she basically said that if I can't get ES to screw her head on straight then I need to drop her like a hot potato and "move on with my progress." 

I don't know what to do. I do know that her situation isn't good for me. I know that I've told her almost everything about my life and that it was easier than saying it to anyone else. I know that I smile when her nickname pops up on my screen. I know that when she realizes I'm a chameleon and that I just change my personality to suit that of others she'll hate me. (Ok, that's a little dramatic. Not hate. Lose all interest. Yeah.) I know that I seem to sense when she's coming and somehow always look up just in time to see her. I know that I'm not relationship material. I know that she's not allowed to date while in the states and that pushing that limit would get her in deep shit. I know that she isn't interested in me. I know that she's leaving after graduation. I know that I haven't felt this alive in a long time. I know that I didn't self harm for a long time until I got involved with her. I know that I'm scared. I know that she's younger than me in more than one way. I know that she's adorable and hilarious. I know that I love listening to her talk, even when her accent makes her impossible to understand. I know that we're almost complete opposites. I know that I'm going up in my recovery while she's still in the wavery period towards the bottom. I know that she might fall and pull me down too. I know that I'm too emotionally involved with this whole thing. I know that it's getting late and she's stopped responding sonI should get some sleep. I know that I can figure this out tomorrow. I know that I won't. I know that talking to her is one of the highlights of my day. I know that she makes me feel inadequate. I know that this won't end well. 

I know that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42. 

I've started restricting again. Somehow acknowledging my disordered eating-related thoughts has brought them to the forefront. I'm glad. I miss it and I feel disgusting. I am disgusting. Lol. (I love that I can laugh at that.) ES is so damn small but she doesn't see it and it's triggering. If she's "fat", then what am I? She's not stick thin but she's short and healthy. (I hate that that word is taken negatively in the ED community. It's not a synonym for fat, it just means that you don't look ready to keel over from stress-induced cardiac arrest or something.) (Lots of digressions tonight.) Everything keeps coming back to her. This is getting to be obsessing. This is wrong. Bleh.

I'd intended to go a different, more upbeat direction with this, all, "yay, crush talks to me, not dead, house hasn't burned down, new friend to chat with, etc," not "moan groan whine, my life revolves her some random chick, she's sad so I'm sad, oh god I'm soooooo fat." Really, who wants to read that drivel? :P

Adult for 107 minutes and already panicking. Help.