my padded room ...

Do you have troubles understanding what an eating disorder is?

Here.

Let me help you with how insane it can be.

I have an allotted amount of chocolate for each day in my cupboard.

That right there is part of an eating disorder.  Limiting how much I allow myself.

Anyway, it gets MUCH more entertaining.

Then there's the fact that I won't allow myself to eat it before 5 o'clock.

If I eat it before 5, then I will just obsess for the remainder of the day about the rest of the chocolate that is in the cupboard and will eat everything else I can get my hands on, even though all I really want is the chocolate, so I try to fill myself up with other things until I'm bloated and sick to my stomach to fill the void that which is the chocolate.

So, I try to eat super healthy until it's chocolate time.  After that, all hell breaks loose.

However, having said that, I have to eat it before 6, otherwise the caffeine will keep me up.  There's this magical 5 - 6 pm time that is like my happy hour.

Seriously, I might as well just stick to the rules and all will go much smoother.

Furthermore, I don't allow myself any more than the allotted amount of chocolate, or I will:

1) have too much sugar in my system creating Candida, then,

2) obsess about what I see in the mirror, then,

3) get on the 'wtf, I already ate that much, I might as well eat the whole damn thing' wagon, then, 

4) eat all the chocolate in the cupboard and have no happy hour the next day, which just sucks, then, 

5) get sick from too much so that I'm lying in a tub like a beached whale, calling my friend to say, "Omg.  I'm so sick.  I just couldn't stop eating it!  And now I can't move from the tub or I'm going to hurl."  (true story)

Anyway.  Among all of the above is also the incessant nattering, the worst of which starts around noon.

"We get chocolate in a while!"  It says.

Then around 1 o'clock.  "I can't wait until we get chocolate!  Here!  You better eat some veggies, brown rice and tahini to calm yourself."

Then around 2, "Oh man.  I don't know if I can hold out much longer!  Here!  Have some goat cheese!  Stat!!"

Around 3, I can be rational and say to myself, "You know, if you eat that chocolate, you're going to be really tired from a sugar crash and you won't get anything done."  That curbs me for a while, because the reality of the mid-day crash is enough to not allow me to make it worse.

But at 4, I seriously start to lose it.  "Omg!  I can't wait much longer.  How about we just eat it now and 'behave' for the rest of the day?!?!?!"

It's at this point that I start to snack on whatever I can find that is snack-able to try to convince my brain that the chocolate has to wait, or make the biggest plate of veggies in the world to keep my mouth busy.

At 5, I RIP THE PACKAGE OPEN AND GORGE IN A PANICKED STATE THAT LOOKS LIKE A COUGAR WHO JUST CAUGHT HIS PREY AFTER NOT EATING FOR A MONTH!!!!!

By 5:10, it's done, and I'm sad that I have to wait another 24 hours before I get to have more.

For the rest of the evening however, I must fight my brain off about the chocolate and remind myself that it just isn't going to happen.

Not to mention, my sugar crash usually keeps me down for the count, and I don't much feel like moving anyway.

This is how I live.

Every day.

This is only part of an eating disorder.

The obsession is manic and I have no control over telling it to shut the fuck up.

I could stop the obsession by abstaining from chocolate all together.

Yes!  I could!

Which I've done in the past.

But I'm in the Dominican Republic people!!!!  The best chocolate and coffee in the world!!!  Why would I want to deprive myself?!?!?!?

So, I obsess.

It must be worth it.

I keep doing it.

i learn from my mistakes