Caught a Cold :(

This is very annoying. I don't have time for this. I have two weeks until my recital, three-ish until my jury and then exams. Needless to say I'm stressing out right now, and it's not looking like that is going to go away until I get healthy again. I have stayed home from school today and am going to have to again tomorrow. Being a generally anxious person to begin with, this is not calming as I never miss class. I have also now skipped the gym today and will have to tomorrow. These things combined gave ED a whole frikin novel to shout out to me..


I am always paranoid when I miss class even if it is for truly legitimate reasons like today and tomorrow. You would honestly think I committed a heinous crime or something. I keep thinking that I'm going to fail all of my courses that I miss that day. I keep thinking "but what if the prof goes over something really important today?" or "what if they get test questions from what they go over today?"


That said, the fact that there are two weeks before my recital scares the bloody hell out of me. The piece that my teacher and I have been working on is the most difficult one we've worked on yet, and although it is a beautiful piece that I'm excited to play; I'm also terrified because I haven't learned all of it yet! I mean, we don't have that much more to learn, just a couple more lines. We'll go over that on Wednesday and it will be fine, but that's still cutting it a little close for my liking. This time last term I had already learned my piece I was going to do for my jury (we didn't have a recital) and knew it inside out and backwards. I'm still learning this one. I'm freaking out.

ED is loving it. "You can't do it!" "It was too hard for you anyway, you didn't have a chance" "Have fun choking on stage and making an ass of yourself!" Every time I think of the recital I can hear his annoying voice whisper and sometimes yell in my ear. "Just give up and go home, you're just going to embarrass yourself" Pair that with my exams coming up next month and it's a guilt/fear cocktail.


Now to add to all of that lovely bubbly atmosphere there's the part where I've skipped two days of the gym. This is EDs favorite part. "You fat ass, you are eating more and exercising less??!!" "Have fun watching your ass grow, you're disgusting" "Your ass won't be able to fit into your dress pants for your recital! You'll be exploding out of your blouse!!"


These have been fun to listen to. Really great.


There have been a couple of times I just stayed in bed and didn't want to get up. I'm sick so I needed the rest, but not that way. Stress is only going to make the cold worse and make it last longer. This is why I have been turning back to some of my therapy exercises. I need to keep challenging these thoughts if I'm ever going to gain control over them. I have been challenging them and coming up with alternative, more realistic and logical ways of thinking about this situation.

• Realistically speaking, my profs may very well get a couple of test questions from a lecture or class that day. But they wouldn't base the ENTIRE test/mid term on that one day - I'm pretty sure I'm not going to fail my classes if I miss one day.
• That said, if my teacher didn't think I could play the piece well, he wouldn't have given it to me to learn. He just wouldn't have.
• The recital isn't a fashion show, it's s student recital. It's a chance for the studio to show everyone what we've been working on this year, not how much weight we've gained/lost. Worse case scenario I grow out of my recital clothes and have to buy new ones - shopping trip!!!
• My body needs the extra nutrients to fight off this cold. It's using all of the extra energy, not storing it as fat. If I didn't eat more, the cold wouldn't go away, simple as that. Even if I'm storing some of it as fat, it isn't the end of the world - I still won't by any means become obese

Now, coming up with these took a lot of thought. I didn't just think of them and everything is happy again. They are recurring and definitely still intense at times, even after thinking of alternative thoughts and even writing them down. But I just need to keep thinking of my logical responses to my disordered thoughts. It will take some time, a lot of tears, and no less determination than before but I will keep working at it. I will be healthy and strong, even if i need to take a couple of days off to get there.


I will be posting soon some tips and tricks that I've learned to combat the bad days, and I think some other posts about how you can help someone in this situation. I might also post some links to helpful sites and resources. All in good time though. I am hoping to make this as informational as I possibly can. One of the most frustrating things about an eating disorder is the lack of knowledge that everyone (including the sufferer) has about the illness, so the more information I can give, the better!

See you soon,

Steph :)