Marnie's Journal: The Final Journey

By Lila Karoub

This is story number two (first one is Marnie's Journals) and a continuation of a troubled woman whose main wish in life was to find a way to die and had attempted suicide many times to escape her troubled mind. According to her journals, the suicidal attempts failed, and she ended up living with the pain and agony she was trying to escape from. She felt trapped in a life she no longer wanted, and no matter what she did, she was unhappy, depressed, disregarded, and did not want to go on living. In this story, this troubled woman reveals the final chapters of her journals that are disturbing to read. The reader will be enthralled with Marnie's Journals: Part 2--the Final Journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662481918

Book preview

cover.jpg

Marnie's Journal

The Final Journey

Lila Karoub

Copyright © 2022 Lila Karoub

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-8189-5 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-8191-8 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Bulimia

Loss and Loneliness

The California Friends

Sharon

I Was a Therapist

Music and Healing

Sister Sibling

COVID-19 Changes the World

Firstborn Betrayal

My Brother

My Mother Once Again

Pollyanna

My Crazy Partner

Sam

Jerry—the Last Hurrah

A Recap on the Men with Whom I Had Children

A World without Opiates

Conclusion

About the Author

Introduction

I am now in a full-fledged relationship with God. It took years to get to this point. What is God? Who is God? For me, it is something that is unimaginable, and many of us wait until we are older to toil with the idea of a supreme being or universal omnipotence. Some people are atheists, and others are agnostic. I have been running around in circles for decades, figuratively and literally, wondering what this part of life could mean. Why are we born to die? It is something that goes without an explanation, as we all have the same fate. The unknown is not within our control.

I talk to myself more than I talk to anyone because there is no one to talk to. My three daughters have their own lives and plenty of pressures that life brings to them. My eldest daughter and I have had a falling out, and as I write this, I understand that it may never be reconciled. Betrayal is nearly impossible to understand, and we have not been in each other's life for over eighteen months. My second daughter is almost my replica, yet I know that she is much savvier. My youngest daughter's nickname was Einee (sweetheart in Arabic) since birth, but that is no longer the case. I thought I would call her that forever.

Talking to yourself may seem abnormal, but in fact, it can be helpful if done in the right way. Most people wonder how they can control the chatter in their heads. There is one way, and that is to use your name and the word you as if you were advising someone else. It seems much easier to advise our own selves than to advise others. There is a phenomenon called Solomon's paradox, from the Bible where King Solomon was adept at advising others but floundered when it was time to use good judgment. Being a former therapist, I can attest to this. My clients were better for the advice, but I rarely took my own.

Introspection is an ability to observe and monitor one's mental process and is great for reflection and, consequently, decision-making. Oftentimes, an individual's use of this tool can have detrimental effects. Instead of reaching something prophetic, it will instead reach negative thoughts, turning this process into a vulnerability as opposed to a strength. Chatter or talking to oneself will often occur, and one way to reduce or control it is by using the word you as if you were advising someone else.

We will all close in on our death and pray that something is out there, but for me, the answer is if not for God, I would not understand the miracles that regularly occur in life. We are born into a world that leads to a type of investigatory process of what the answers could be. The religious ones say the answer is in the holy book. The science-oriented scholars defy the existence of a supreme being. Who we are collectively is an answer that takes a lifetime to understand. All our lives, we toil with this mystery, and there is a different answer for all of us. I believe in God for a couple of different reasons, and it is best not to make this subject too complicated.

Loneliness and God seem to go hand in hand. To gaze into the sky and talk to God in itself is an act of solitude. Conversely, in the darkest days, I only had God and prayers to understand how to go on. Please, God, give me guidance. I am lost and unable to find a way to be happy. This has been a repeated request and a new way of life to practice then and now, for the remainder of my life.

I was drawn to God early on because I was without a plan, felt less than, without one to talk to. I never had a friend long enough to confide in or authority figures I could not count on. There was only God, the one constant throughout my entire life. If not for this belief, I would have been lost in a boat without the paddle, and in fact, I was lost for many years without any sense of direction.

I've had many glimpses of God at the strangest times in the strangest ways, and they were always unexpected. One time while visiting my father's grave, I did an obligatory prayer for him, wanting to rush out of there. Shamefully, I rarely visited his grave. On this day, there was a sudden gust of intense winds, blowing everything around, which knocked me over. As I had a moment of doubt standing over his grave, the wind spoke with vigor and fierceness. What was that, I thought, and quickly regained my composure. I realized if God was everlasting, then I would never need anything else, nor would I fear loneliness. If along the way, if I ever got close to anyone, this would be a bonus in life. God stays in the picture no matter what. Nothing can compare to this.

So much has occurred—so many twists and turns and a catastrophic event that would forever change how I looked at life and the future. Once, this path looked promising, and it was more than I could ask for. With a couple of exceptions, I never took life for granted and walked cautiously into the future. I made a person feel welcomed and could bring out the best in someone. Once, in the days of being a therapist, a married couple explained that counseling was not helping. After a couple of hours of an extended session, something was starting to work. They asked to keep going and were afraid to stop the process. I suggested that we continue our session after a dinner break to gain clarity and return for additional guidance. This married couple went on together and were forever grateful. I helped them, and I was a therapist.

Their personal touches were being mastered. I loved where I was in my life and gave whatever it took. I was grateful to be part of it. After I got clean of opiates, I never again took any facet of life for granted and was grateful to be trained as a therapist. Too bad and too late. I was given the ability to help someone and felt lucky it all worked out. I helped everyone and anyone. I was on the path of burning out before I had a chance to understand what that meant. No more advice from this former therapist. All alone with no advice to give to anyone for anything. I stay to myself these days.

One thing that has happened during the writing of this book was the historical pandemic of COVID-19 in the entire 2020 year and beyond. My, how the world had changed. I am not a medical doctor or a scientist, but I have studied enough courses throughout college and beyond to know that people from all denominations were afraid and thought they may die. In the world's history, there has never been something like the COVID-19, putting us all, the entire world at the same time, on common ground. We were in a state of panic, and no one had the answers.

In the morning, I rose early, as to sleep in was no longer on my agenda. It was not possible to sleep past the first light, not ever again in my lifetime. Sleep deprivation was the new normal since my criminal days. I prayed first before I did anything because it relieved the internal sadness of waking up alone. I walked out to the other room, where my partner was deeply asleep. I wanted to go near him and provide comfort to his lonely body lying by himself. He seemed peaceful while he slept deeply, and the noises of heavy snoring had separated us to make new sleeping arrangements years ago.

For years, enjoying a night of sleep was impossible until we finally called it quits. It is often difficult to look over at him, alone and still hanging in there with our relationship. He often stated he was unhappy, but it was impossible to understand why he would remain in this relationship. I was unhappy too, mostly because I was always just half in. Too much had occurred between us, and instead of ending it, we became friends. Life has shown us that if we had healed from our relationship toils before meeting, it would have been a different outcome. We wrecked each other.

My partner had stated many times that he would not live a life this way, and the next moment he was settled that we found a way. Finding a way was all we have ever done from the beginning to the present. It was a shaky beginning, and it has forever been on the edge. We met when my world was just starting to collapse, and we had not yet experienced a carefree, getting-to-know-each-other type of relationship. It was a blast with the alcohol and drugs, but once I cleaned up my act, he had to slow down and eventually stop his drinking habit. Without this, we became a couple who had to start over and not get caught up in inebriation. Life became boring, and then it became lonely. Sobriety was not fun.

I guess we would no longer have the ingredients of a successful relationship, and perhaps we never did. They say you can start over, but that is much more complicated than one thinks. It is more than challenging and often impossible to have gone through so much yet remain in a committed relationship. To start over sounds like the right idea, yet it never quite ends up that way. It is not his fault that I remained with a drunk and was excelling in my use of pills. It is not my fault that he stayed in this relationship knowing that partying would no longer be allowed. Those days caused too much damage for the both of us, and anyone who knew us would agree.

Eventually, the little that I had to give my partner would dissipate, and just to continue with him was about all I had left. As I watched him sleeping in his lonely bed, I could feel what he felt, while I slowly go down the steps quietly so as not to wake him. I did not want to wake him and prefer to ache while watching a slow death of a lonely relationship. What happened would take too many years to understand, and surely, he would be better off to find someone else. Somehow, this thought never occurred to him.

When I was in my midtwenties, I had endured an eating disorder for over ten years, abusing my body. After several years of this, I could still feel the urge to get the food out of me if my eating went awry. Bulimia is vicious, and overeating can never be done again. Somehow, I ended up with this but did not understand why I did. What had happened in my life? Why did I spend too many years keeping up with the menu of fast-food restaurants, eating thousands of calories, and end up getting rid of it hundreds of times in hundreds of different toilets? Always a way out, always enduring such abuse, and shredding my mental and physical body were part of the deal. It was a very difficult habit to endure, and with each unsuccessful day with eating followed a strict regimen of dieting, vomiting, and purging.

The men that have been part of my past continue to be part of my everyday life. My first ex and father to my firstborn daughter, who is described as the hero for getting us to California, continued to be homeless. My second ex, father to my second child, who had monopolized my time for years and broke up every relationship I had after him, finally had enough of this when his doctor explained that he would be dead in a month from a cancer takeover. One year ago, I had traveled to Michigan and agreed to have coffee with him before the cancer diagnosis. He was staring at me like he had always done, and I wished the ogling would stop. I guess one should watch what they wish for.

The cancer diagnosis was so sudden, in fact, that I started to question how many years I had left realistically. I also was devastated and could hardly function for days at a time. Someone who was there for decades would not be around much longer. He thought I was the world to him, and until the pain and sickness of cancer took over, I was the preferred method. Now, after so many years, I was the sin that he repented before he would die. I would have to stand on my own, while he was staring at death instead of me. He asked for my prayers and no longer asked to talk. Here we go in this endless motion of rejection. I guess you could say that I'm stronger than I should be.

For years, I have been journaling, long before it became a popular concept in today's pop culture. In general, as a former therapist, it is the best intervention that one can do when they find they may need to talk to a professional. Yes, that was me once upon a time, and all I can do is to continue to grow without my profession. I miss the people that needed me, and I would want to give them so much in return. They did not expect a therapist who sincerely cared, and I taught what I knew. This always felt good, and the eternal question is, why would I risk it all for something that I was born to do? There is no good answer.

The journaling process is not for everyone, and it is possible that one may not want to face the truth. I continue to journal, and I have perfected my dear-diary skills. I continue to see my therapist, and she continues to provide interpretations of where I am in my life. It is important to include it as part of the client's treatment plan. It does not have to be a burdening process because even a line or two results in reflection and growth.

There is nothing fancy about these white or yellow scribbles with dates barely identifiable. One's journal does not require legible notes, rather the messages of those notes.

Therapist's notes

In round two with Marnie, we would work on rejection and loss which caused innumerable problems in her life. The goal of therapy was no longer about suicidal ideation. Now, Marnie wanted to continue therapy as a preventative measure not to return to her old ideas and ways that failed to serve her well earlier in her life. It is not a requirement, rather her will and desire to continue with therapy, learn a little more about who she is, and continue to live in a drug free world. Her sobriety is now nine years clean and the woman that initially entered therapy years ago is not the same. She has a better understanding of how to live her life, but still, there are things that gnaw at her existence.

Marnie has the need to explore an eating disorder, bulimia, that went undiagnosed for years. The lack of control she had in the early part of her life was settled with binging and purging. It also opens the door to insurmountable loneliness and a secretive life, making it impossible to fill the empty void. This would lead to other destructive behaviors of her own personal choices.

In our work, we continue to uncover the truth and we are under no state obligations to make this discovery. In this round of therapy, it is about life embitterment and ways to improve one's deteriorated, decayed, and maladjusted thinking. Mostly on the edge her entire life, this round of therapy concentrates on overall improvement, rather than meeting another agency's criteria. When the therapy is riddled with anxiety, it is likely that the monitoring of such improves the chances of getting healthy. For the first time and after years of working together, the glass is no longer half-empty.

1

Bulimia

There are many forms of abusive acts that have resurfaced in my writings. The self-induced abuse of bulimia is one of them that I practiced religiously for over fifteen years. From the hamburger joints to the commodes were a daily habit. Binging and purging still lives within me, but I think I have found the cure. It started long ago in my preteen days of the restrictions of food and diets that I would try in my attempt to stay in shape. I was a competitive swimmer for a few years, and that helped.

We then moved out of Detroit and acclimated into the suburbs. The new schools there were not built with indoor pools, thus my aquatic days were over, and so was my figure. I guess I failed to realize just how vigorous these swimming workouts were, and when it stopped, I started gaining weight. It began so early and would progress into a broken-down body, which would cause a deterioration of the esophagus and bowels. To this day, my throat could close while swallowing, where I am sure one day will be the end by choking to death.

Many years ago, I read about the model and actress Edie Sedgwick, who was a friend of the artist Andy Warhol. She was bulimic. She was also a troubled soul, mixing barbiturates and alcohol. Before she died at twenty-eight of a drug overdose, she lived her life with an eating disorder. Eating disorders come in different forms—obesity, anorexia, and bulimia—but all these disorders are unrevealed until health problems occur. Bulimia helps maintain one's weight while everything else in your body is shutting down. Mix drugs and alcohol with bulimia, death is inevitable. Continue in this vein and your eyes see things that are disturbing to one's field of vision. Edie Sedgwick's life and accomplishments were vanquished with every bulimic episode, and she somehow thought this was a good way to control her weight.

The part that was fascinating more than her fame was the way she would binge and purge food, with self-induced vomiting. I really had little interest in her modeling or Andy Warhol, but I became fascinated with this young woman who would stay thin with bulimia. I was curious looking at the pictures of her thin body and the way she described her eating habits. The description of binging on any foods she desired, burgers, cakes, ice cream, and candy, followed by several glasses of water, was fascinating, only to be purged from her stomach into a toilet. It seemed to be the answer that I was looking for. This occurred throughout my twenties and into my early thirties.

In addition to this reading, there was also a few famous actors that developed the same habits of binging and purging. Little was known about it back then, and now it is the DSM, a diagnostic manual of mental disorders. Needless to say, this fascination became something I would practice for many years. It was unfamiliar to eat in this way, and shortly before I moved to California, I would hone in on the skills of this unhealthy way to eat. At first, I could not get the food out and was stuck with thousands of consumed calories such as whole pizzas, ice cream, and several candy bars. I never understood how I could consume so many calories, but I did. I would drink more water and make sure I would wait before purging this food out. I learned how to do it and did so for too many years. This would cause a change in my personality that a professional psychiatrist explained was a mental illness. No kidding!

When I moved to California, away from the family, I continued with the eating disorder, and it was so crazy out of control. The binging and purging were practiced more than ever, and the toilet, with its adjoining walls, had to be methodically wiped down, something that I thought was within my control. I could not see the obvious, as I was way too enmeshed with my fractured ego. This was not a known illness then but would become one later when the great singer and artist Karen Carpenter died from complications of anorexia. She would do the unthinkable with her body and would succumb to this disease by thirty-two years old.

One can go to extremes with the eating disorders, as I continued to binge and purge throughout those initial critical years of California. I needed some stability that I thought food would provide. As what would happen with pills later in my life, bulimia was my new obsession and addiction, along with staying thin. Something was working in my life. Actually, between the excessive exercising and excessive vomiting, I should not be breathing. The strain I would put on my body would eventually ruin my health. I would not look at the obvious and remained in this denial for quite some time. Sometimes, it is so clear to me how I became this person without rules. I had violated the promises to quit, but more importantly, I was violating my body.

I went to a physician in San Diego once and asked for help. He recommended a psychiatrist, and I made an appointment to see him. This man was all about medication and wrote out several prescriptions. He explained that I was mentally ill, no ifs, ands, or buts. Of course, this was completely offensive, I rejected this notion and never went to see him again. As a young woman in my twenties, who had just relocated to California, mental illness seemed unlikely. In my denial, my eyes developed several tiny retina holes, which caused a haze and floaters that obscured my vision while the retinas were detaching. My teeth were decayed, and my brain was decomposing. Yes, all this was from vomiting out the excessive food that I had ingested.

I stayed marginally thin with bulimia, and eventually my body would show symptoms of all this forced purging. It did not seem to matter that I had these vision problems. I continued to take trips to fast-food restaurants and consume thousands of calories, and the commode was my confidante while I hid this disgraceful secret. I was abusive to my body, and I would develop a series of problems. Sometimes, the food would get caught in my throat, and I thought I would choke to death alongside the commode, often in bathrooms that were in fast-food restaurants. No, it did not stop me because I knew that I failed to drink enough water. That was the problem rather than almost dying in the bathroom. I had no bounds, and when I was invited to someone's home for dinner or out to a restaurant, the bathroom was the first order of business, to make sure I could get to it without an issue.

Ever so determined, I would continue with the binging of foods and remained in the bathroom for a long time, and when it did not purge easily, I started drinking water out of the faucet to try again. It worked, and it seemed that no one was suspected anything. I would often stay in the bathroom for as long as an hour and was exhausted. One summer day in Michigan, I was staying with my sister at her home in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and she asked why I took so long in the bathroom. I finally told someone. She begged me to stop, and like the unfair, egocentric sister I was, I wanted center stage with my bulimic episodes. I mean, we all have our demons, and this was mine. It was in the days my sister cared about me and wanted this to go away. I did too, but it was much harder than one could imagine.

Obsessed or possessed with staying thin, I was feeling tremendous guilt about what the psychiatrist had said about a mental disorder. I guess he was right. I knew that until the purging was done, I became very anxious, and after, I was depressed. I remember my constant thought was I could not go on like this much longer. For the next several years, I would vomit on airplanes, in friends' homes, in my father's home, in employers' bathrooms, and even in fields when there was not a bathroom nearby. I started to map out my day and how I could binge without causing a stir. The only commotion was within me, and the mind would get confused. I thought that anyone and everyone who stayed thin had the same issues. I convinced myself of this to continue with this so-called mental disorder.

Soon, others would find out, and I explained there was not an issue to quit this craziness. Thus, I would eat and leave to run errands. My errand was to find a bathroom to induce vomiting. The eating disorder that I had no control of now controlled me, and this continued for years. On a trip to the mountains with a boyfriend, I confided in him, and he made a deal with me. He was a heavy smoker, and I was worried about him. I would try to limit my binging and purging to once a day. He would, in turn, have one cigarette an hour. Sometimes, he would miss the time to smoke, and in turn, I would think less about bulimia. It was not a perfect solution, but it was a start to recovery. He was successful, and so was I. We had both cut back on our ugly habits, but unfortunately, it was not enough.

Eventually, after years of abusing my body in this way, I saw an eye doctor who said he could do a laser procedure that would repair the retina holes. I had hope and promised myself I would not continue with this eating disorder. The procedure did work, but I continued down the road of ruins. I had convinced myself that I was not doing any harm, if you can even imagine. It was impossible to stop, but it was way too much to continue. The boyfriend that started my road to recovery was honest, and I was trying to be. Eventually, when this boyfriend left my life, there was not a need to stay paper-thin any longer, and guess what? I quit the business of bulimia. It was not a perfect abstinence, but not having to stay thin did help. I knew the rest would take care of itself.

Over the years, if I found myself eating a little too much, I would eat a little less the following days and was less miserable. Normal is something unfamiliar. This was the road to healing—making a little more progress, not binging, and too tired to stand over a toilet for nearly an hour. I would eat out less, and whenever I was invited out, I knew what not to do any longer. Never again and for the rest of my life would I step foot inside one of these fast-food places. If I did not want to gorge, I would have to change my habits, and if I wanted to change my habits, the thinking had to change. This was anything but easy.

What I did to my body was unthinkable, but I was unable to knock it off for years and paid the price with brittle calcium-deficient bones, teeth that were falling out, and a damaged esophagus in the later years, not to mention what I did with my eyesight. The damage was irreparable. It was the beginning of the end when I ended the relationship that kept this habit alive. I finally started to heal in more ways than one. I participated in this eating disorder for many years, off and on. Of course, as with any unhealthy habit, I would eat too much and relapse. I was still making progress because instead of several times a day of binging and purging, it was once or twice a month.

The psychiatrist knew what he was talking about, but I refused to believe him. The only thing I took from that one appointment was years later when I realized that I had to be more compassionate to people in my personal and professional life. If only this man had not jumped to mental illness conclusions and ended our one and only session without the type of compassion I needed. I ran for my life because he failed to see what the real problem was. It was the eating disorder that took over my life, that much was true, but this was the obvious symptom. There was this entire other part that was missed by the trained doctor. I was screaming for help, and his bedside manner did not exist. It was the need for control over something or someone. The life I led had too many deficiencies to name. This is where it all started.

For years, my family would broach the subject of the eating disorder, and I would tell them it was no longer an issue. I wanted to believe it, so saying this meant that it was. I was killing myself, but it took a hold of me in ways that I had to lie about it. It was an addiction of sorts, the way I would plan my day around it. Because I was still productive with employment and as a mother, I continued to believe everything was fine. I was too close to it, and one cannot see what is right in front of them.

As I previously stated, the ending of the Michigan boyfriend relationship would be the beginning of the end with bulimia. It left a path of destruction, and this was my beginning to a world of mental illness. I often had a difficult time with authority, as any thinking person does. This would not serve me well in the upcoming years. There are times when one has to give way to authority or one that has age-old wisdom. In my twenties, I could not see what was good for me because this made me look weak, and I could not have that. Not getting any real benefit from the psychiatric visit, I would instead quit on my own without psychotropic drugs and confusion.

The bulimia-type thinking went on for years, and if I were careful in the eating department, I would not have a problem. Not everything works out, and sometimes when you least expect it, you are holding onto a toilet in a not-so-nice bathroom. You make a mess, and one can barely stand up when finished purging. The mind is overwhelmed, and the body is aching from the vomiting. It does not all come out at once, so there are repeated attempts to get it all out. This is not pretty, and this routine is monstrous.

Because I had read about the people who struggled with their weight, it normalized my eating disorder. It never occurred to me that I was abnormal. I was always the last person to see the obvious throughout my life. I was forever shocked at the actions of others, not realizing the part I played in it all. I called it naivete and prefer to keep it there. It is safer and relatively painless. Bulimia is a vicious disease, but once it begins, it takes over. I did quit many times just to return to a bathroom and run the shower to cover the noise of my gagging, coughing, choking, flushing, and cleaning.

Sometimes in the cleaning process, I would not get it all, and questions would be asked. I had to be careful and did so, as I did not want to be bombarded with caution. The funny part about this terrible ordeal is it did not really work as much as I wanted it to. In fact, the research studies claim that only 25 percent of what was ingested could only be purged, and I finally started to look at this differently. Not the eye damage, not the throat that I had to clear sometimes to breathe or prevent choking when it would not come out easily, and not the secrets. It was this percentage that held me back. I had wasted so many years.

Today, I know what to do and must practice this every day. My days of big holiday fiestas and pig-outs are long behind me. This was the only answer and that which I practice. There was no magic cure, and it took some type of discipline to end this madness. They say that eating disorders are incurable, but short of that, I have found my own way to ignore the food temptations and delay the internal calling to wreck my abstinence. Like drugs, there are food relapses, and I was learning to eat better, take care of my health, and understand the one-step-at-a-time philosophy. As they say, the damage was done.

When I practiced my profession as a licensed therapist, bulimia and anorexia were two disorders I was trained in. It is true that women with an eating disorder are statistically higher than men, but in my private practice days, I saw both. Men seemed to take to the therapeutic methods more than women, but it was all the same treatment. Of course, some patients were too far gone in their sickness and had to be admitted to the hospital. Like me, they denied there was a problem, and when they could not handle treatment, they quit. I imagine when I went to see that psychiatrist, he should have known how far gone I was, with the eye damage that I carefully explained to him, the weakness I described, or the fear I presented. Who was the blind one here? I came for help and the not-so-well-trained psychiatrist missed a couple of important things in his training; however, it sent a message that compassion with any client would go much further.

What I learned from this lone session was I never wanted to be treated the way this professional treated me, and if ever I was to become a licensed therapist, when clients were struggling with eating disorders, depression, suicidal ideation, or marital problems, I would have a gentler bedside manner. I would never take a person's hope and throw it into the wind. If only this man, who was no better than I, would have come out of his holy doctor's status and realized how difficult it was to go see him and how much I suffered.

Something got lost in this doctor's training, and his idea of prescribed medicines would not be the answer. I needed a sense of hope, no matter what state of mind I was in, that I could beat this. If I learned anything from graduate school and in my own training, it was the compassion of a therapist that was important rather than the education and the degrees earned. It was easy for me, but such is not the case for others in my profession.

Fairweather friends

Who is to say that one can get over the damage of the past? Is it true, with hard work and dedication, that we must keep up the ruse? All these years later, I still hide what I am really feeling because no one really wants to know. Most people are self-absorbed and would not bother to notice anyway. I know this firsthand from the years of abuse and professional hardship. All I did was talk about it until it was no longer interesting. I am talking about now because it is the truth. The damage will impair one's vision of that truth. I believe it all started when I was in grade school and the rejection of friendships.

There are the friendships that I write about in my journal, and I recently started to give it a lot of thought. The childhood torture I endured was due to friends who pretended to have an interest in me. In other words, they were not really friends at all. Recently, a dear friend dropped out of my life, and it brought back the memories of the years of childhood rejection. I guess she really did not like me after all like the childhood friends. Each man that I trusted with my love was just another letdown. It is impossible to understand why people are judgmental. Am I the only one that gets it? I was born different, and although my life takes me in directions that are unmanageable and inconceivable, I always knew that deep down, I had a love in my heart that could not be tainted with life's disappointments.

I am alone in life without a true partner or a true friendship. Let me say that I have my current partner and my daughters with their children, so one could argue that this could not be true. Conversely, I have four siblings that produced nineteen nieces and nephews. Recently, on my visit to see my mother, I stood up for what was right, and she insisted her way was the right way while she stood over me, walker in tow. All I could do is concede and hug her to get out of it, but it was not really settled. It was never settled and always internalized. No one really knows what is inside of me because the truth hurts people. I prefer to be alone and by myself. I have no problems that way, but it is unsettling.

I have my thoughts and journals to keep me occupied. My thoughts these days are broken down into these abusive actions I've experienced and how I was able to live my life after the disasters that had come my way. I am years and decades past the bulimic days, but that does not mean things are more peaceful in my life. I remain this way because it is the right thing to do for a thousand different reasons. It seemed easier to go into a bathroom after I gorged myself with food and to rid myself of it. Yet no matter what life's challenges were, I stay away from the eating disorder mentality. Something had to happen with all the remnants of this vicious eating disorder.

In addition, I missed my friend from graduate school that remained loyal for twenty years, but this friendship allegiance was only from my perspective. I gave everything to this friendship and knew that was not what I normally do. I shielded myself from closeness because nothing is ever real. This friend decided that I was not worth the trouble and dropped out of the picture two years ago. To say I was devastated only partially describes what I went through. I was thankful I never shared the days of the bulimia with her, as this friendship became a judgment call.

The saving grace here is another friendship, my one true Michigan friend, who was always there, and a new appreciation occurred. This friend was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer last year and given one year to live. This California friend was finally at the bottom of my list, as nothing else mattered in the world after my Michigan friend received her grim prognosis. This friend had been there since we were teenagers, and it is said that one can only have one true friend. My Michigan friend is struggling to stay alive, and I struggle with her. It took this severe cancer diagnosis to wake me up from the friendship coma with my California fake friendship. My Michigan friend was aware of the eating disorder but never mentioned it and, more importantly, never held it against me.

Additionally, when I moved to California, I met this very weird woman whose main mission was to cheat on her husband. Since she was so open about this, I was open about my eating disorder. I thought she would have compassion, but who was I kidding? She thought I was crazy and told me so. I imagine cheating on one's husband in her mind was acceptable behavior versus a woman who vomits. Seemed equal in shock value. Although she had no right to judge me, she did so, and that friendship was over before it began. She hung around for a couple of years, but I finally moved to another home in another neighborhood away from her. This was my lesson to hold on to my secrets, or the most heinous rejections will occur.

This was my first friend in California, but when she tried to seduce my roommate, I thought it better not to be friendly with this woman. This woman was always looking for a sideline affair, and I was always surprised at the way men flocked around her. I guess she would do things that I could not pronounce the names of, and these men could not get enough of her. This want-to-be friend never really got to know me, and what I got to know of her was not so kosher. I never saw the obvious and gave away way too much of myself. You see, the moral of this story is, who can one really trust? I guess I was lonely initially in California and she was available. Yes, this is more than likely the answer. I could only take so much pretense and loneliness.

Like the friends before her, she was a fake and wanted this pretend friendship to give her an opportunity to charm the boyfriend I was with when the roommate rejected her. Yes, sir, if there is only one true friendship in life, this was not the case here. My Michigan friendship prevailed. California is not friendship friendly, and it was difficult to get to know someone. You would hardly know your neighbors before another one moves in. The neighbors across the way and next door are so close in proximity that an occasional wave is about all one can hope for. If they could avoid it, they would.

I cannot move forward until I settle the score of life. First, the abuse of eating disorder needs to be understood and why I overlooked my physical health. Maybe the damage of my childhood cannot be overestimated or exaggerated. This was me at this time of my life, a bulimic with serious health issues. Did I really make this leap because I read about someone's eating disorder? This alone, feeling isolated in thought, and then deciding to engage in this madness demonstrate a mental illness that is hard to understand. I am somewhat sad that what I am writing is true, and that hurts the soul. I was in pain before I could speak—my late father explained that from