"I Am the Girl You Know..."

   I went running for the first time in forever, the day after our school's esteemed Fitness Friday gym class, and my thighs are killing me. It feels good though. I'll take the pain in my muscles that screams "Improvement!" over making myself throw up every five seconds. It seems as though my subconscious revolves around finding ways to inflict the most hurt on my body that it possibly can at all times. This method is inarguably the healthiest. Bulimia was awful and disgusting and although the recovery process is almost pretty much over and that is a huge relief, I can't help but feel a little panicked. My self-destructive tendencies have seemed to get worse over the years... I've consistently kicked one bad habit for another since I was thirteen.
   Ugh, it's a little embarrassing to admit these things, but I'm a firm believer in talking it out, and this blog is more or less supposed to help me by voicing my frustrations. Most of my frustrations stem from my poor decision-making skills.
   Ok, with that little introduction out of the way, I'm going to list the few pastimes I've successfully carried out and pushed aside over the past four years without getting caught.
   It all started in middle school when I would huff pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I was in seventh grade at the time. I cringe every time I admit that. Not only does that habit make me look like a total dumbass, it made me act like a total dumbass. Yeah, yeah, the highs only last fifteen seconds at most, but the chemicals eat away at your brain and turn you into a living, breathing dumbass. I'm just banking on the fact that it only lasted a little less than a year, and I was so young that maybe my brain cells recuperated perfectly and now I'm totally fine.
   After huffing came alcohol. That lasted from eighth to tenth grade. It was more sporadic than the huffing, but it got out of control extremely fast. It went from stealing a can of light beer from the surplus in the fridge that would appear from time to time, to taking an entire bottle of 70-proof liquor and downing it in less than half an hour. The last drink I ever took was enough to put me out and mercilessly let me wake up in a puddle of my own vomit. Luckily, I didn't piss or shit myself, but I spewed all over my bed and headboard. I don't get hangovers, I just sleep a little more. But Jesus Christ, that one night I drank enough to keep me drunk for the next two days. It went way too far, and that was enough for me to just stop drinking altogether. I am so relieved that I stopped when I did though, because I started experiencing some of the withdrawal symptoms when I gave it up cold turkey. They weren't that severe, and honestly it was probably just some sort of placebo effect, but it scared me a little bit. I was sixteen and nursing an alcohol addiction. Holy shit. That actually still terrifies me. What if later on in my life I take it up again? I just really don't want to end up like so many of my family members. I don't want to be a failure.
   The bulimia and the drinking overlapped a bit. It was just a bad time for me. But the disorder really didn't get worse until later on. The funny thing is, my family actually did catch me with it, but they only threatened me and stuff like that. They didn't really do anything about it. So it carried on until maybe last month. I've been pretty solid with recovery since the summer, but this school year has seen a couple week-long relapses, but now it's just like I have no desire to do it whatsoever. Which is amazing and makes me really happy to think about.
   Anyway, I've started exercising vigorously again because I finally found a way to listen to music on my runs since my phone broke. I have this really old ipod, and the charger was broken, so I gave my mom some cash and asked her to get a new one for me and she did! Now I can listen to all of my emo tenth-grade jams and power through my neighborhood jog. I ran five miles today, and "Miss World" by Hole came on. I love that song. It has a weird meaning to me. The one line she sings goes, "I am the girl you know, can't look you in the eye," and it seems that it's about this chick that's super hot and super shy and super cool, but whenever I hate someone so passionately, I can't look them in the eye. I don't talk a lot either. Am I calling myself super hot and super cool though? Hey, that's miss Courtney Love-Cobain doing that, there. But joking aside, maybe she's talking about being too good for these people around her who think that they have the right to judge. I like that a lot. I'm glad that I made that connection. Even if it doesn't make a lot of sense to other people, it makes me feel a little bit better about everything. It's like I'm not going it alone, you know?