I am going to the beach today and doing nothing but spiritual things, my meditation and writing regime, and painting.

I made it 34 hours on my attempted 3-day fast.

I got up Saturday and it was like 18 hours into the fast and I felt really positive, probably cause I had had a little social contact (though not so healthy. stayed overnight at the house of a man I had jsut met. no sex. it was a roommate interview. and he had another roommate, a woman. dumb, du-dumb, dumb, dumb! -- I know. But EVEN SO just this little contact with human being raised m,y self-esteem so much, the spontaneous thought came to me: "OK! I think I'm going to do a little fast!" It was a spontaneous exprexxion of positivity and willingness to heal on the part of my inner child. THat thought was directly from the inner child, whom I am trying to coax into fasting (which for me is sobriety.... it is first of all an abstinence form my drug of choice

In my self-esteem book (N. Branden) the point is made that SOBRIETY of some kind is the sine qua non of self esteem. The author speaks in terms of "living consciously." But this is easily translated to "not seeking unconsciousness " ... not getting high... for me, to eat when my body is in the condition it is currently in is unambiguously to be drugging myself. I have no business eating at the moment... I have got to fast.

My only beef with Saturday was that as I went through Hours 20 to 30 of the Fast I was sluggish and I was also trapped in an urban/mall area. I was in a pleasant enough, yuppified parking lot (I admit -- Whole Foods Market... but I didn't buy anything!!! Such a major achievement. I just grabbed large handfuls of moisturizer freebies which turned out to be not that great) and in the shade.. but if only I had been at the beach first of all the air and ocean water would have detoxed me and second I would not have had the crippling sense of getting NOTHING DONE... even though I was doing the most important thing, fasting...
Heres how the fast went -- I was tellign myself a new inspirational thought. The thought was: I have an important job just like all these people I am seeing around me in whole foods market. And my job is to fast and to learn to fast at length and to write about it. To write about how I learned to fast at length. I intend to learn to fast at lentgth and this posting is the document of this and I am creating this and this is my job and my contribution to society and my work. And I ma important and my fasting is important and I will keep fasting because fasting is my important work. I felt good cause in fasting I was also choosign to do a morally right thing and a self-caring thing and a positive thing and a productive thing -- I was being moral and positive and self-caring and productive in the same away as the rich people I was nose-presed-against-the-glass to in whole foods market. I was like them . I gelt good. I felt I belonged. i felt as good and as worthy as them. I got motivation to fast cause it made me one of them. ... yet eventually this was not powerful motivation enough... as horrifying as it is to me to be an unproductive drunk and not a successful positive rich person... who treats other people FAIRLY and is primarily concerned with BEING HONEST and BEING A GOOD PERSON in life... as soon as I got past a certain level of detox -- by nightfall -- I started to get itchy. I drove to the stop & shop. I sat in the lot. I thought I would just break the fast but then i said "NO! let me do this fast, let me just buy food chew it up and spit it out." I sat in the lot. I dactually decided no, I would not do the chewing up etc. Because I was sensitive to its making me actually sick to do that -- I think thats why I (miraculously) stopped myself. It feels hard to write about this cause of the frustration of the denial of the getting high.... in refraining from getting high I am really frustrating myself and my inner child gets totally enraged and if I jsut frustrate myself like that without someway doing justice to my feelings ... i end up eating I guess... or I dont knoww what happens I onlyu know it is SO hard so impossible to live without doign justice to my feelings and the only way i have most of the time is to get high -- to eat. ... But I decided without actually too much of a sense of deprivation to gotot the movies instead. Well, I saw hairspray and it was ok in that it had dancing and reminded me to get into dance and get in classes again but NOT OK in its total standard party-line denial of the horror that being fat really is and the misery and the drunkenness and the dysfunction that it really is ... the message is just this denying, pandering, rage-repressing "oh, fat is okay" dismissiveness... really such a toxic poison... totally ignoring the horror that it is to be fat, and the horrific violation of the body... the body's screams for stopping eating are pathologized as "anorexic thinking.." it is horrifying and I need to protest it in my art or publicly somehow... this grand gross denial -- this horrific, raping lie that teh media feeds us that people should not mind being fatter than they want to be... and so I felt very invalidated...
but I think I was making secret eating plans all along cause as soon as I left the movie that was it and at 1:10 am i callously broke my fast. I am too lazy and too in-denial to write about WHY... mainly it all boils down to as always not having enough of a motivation to fast and not having enough support... my positive realization about this problem as I write is that OK, posting and keeping my commitments to this forum will develop a motivation for me.


Major anxiety is I have a date tomorrow. Just a midday one-hour thing however... I want this connection and simultaneously am because of the young man's personality completely afraid to assert myself in the basic ways I need to, with others, with him. So. He wants to sleep with me. So. I have to present myself as a person who is so compelling that he will choose to hang around with me even if I don't sleep with him. Because. I do not want to sleep with him. Because. He would react negatively if I really asserted myself to him. By expressing my sense of humor or hinting at my understanding of the world. Or by objecting to his dependent tendencies. He would lash out. People get intimidating sometimes. Besides the issue of my basic self-presentation to others. I am thin. I must fast. People respond, "but you haffta eat!!!!" ... this I find so utterly violating. This response humiliates me. It traps me in a corner in which I am forced to acknowledge the truth of what they are saying. It is NOT OK with me. THat they are Right is somply not OK with me. I had a horribly traumatic episode in an AA meeting last night withthi kind of interaction. This is a problem I have not solved. If I could solve it I could have contact with others. i could have friends. So. How am I to do this date. I want to tell people the TRUTH about myself or at least what I really think and feel and want. I want to say to this person ... OK, I am not a success in life in the ordinary sense and I am engaged in a massive and life-vital struggle to... how can I present it gradually? ... do the healing work that I need to do to live a merely basically secure, let aone happy life... this is, to GET SOBER -- to heal my chronic, compulsive, self-intoxication -- and this means LEARNING TO FAST... my struggle, what I am all about in life right now, is to LEARN TO FAST... how can you say this to someone??? How could anyone ever accept a drunken, desperate person such as I am???? ... Basically this is making me face hard truths about myself... I am a drunk... this means isolation... this means I am actually not worthy to be with others... yet I cannot stop!!! I cannot fast to the extent that I need to in order to even be a basically sober and present human being!!!! Stopping is so painful and slow and it seems so impossible that I am just constantly choosing intoxication -- the easy way out!!! God, Please help me!!! I just need something that will compel me -- make me want to exert myself to get well -- to FAST!!!!

.. which means I may well just have to kiss him goodbye since he will probably not want to be around any of that and it makes me sad, I am starting to weep as I write. I dont want to be rejected.

so I am off to the beach.
So -- a checkin for right now:
So. I should probably address the horrific issue of the being-violated-by-others... of the others screaming at me in my face that I haffta eeeet.
Is the only answer not to put myself in that situation. I have sometimes thought that the answer is to say back calmly No, I do not have to eat. No, it is not true that people need food to live. No, I intend never to eat again. Just keep saying this, defiantly, to the person. And just let the person stew. But it is tragic that the only way out is to say stuff that everybody just dismisses you for, or at worst, locks you up for. Yet these are the only dignity-preserving responses to make to a person who screams as it were in your face that YOU HAFFTA EEET. These are the only responses that do justice to my feelings. The terror of this kind of interaction -- which is basically a case of my being raped -- basically prevents me from interacting with others at all. PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS POST -- DUE TO THE SECTION JUST WRITTEN IT IS TOO VULNERABLE -- I HAVE SPENT THE NIGHT HORRIFYINGLY INSECURE FOLLOWING THE AA WOMAN'S VIOLATION OF ME WHICH I DO NOT EVEN HAVE THE STRENGTH TO WRITE ABOUT HERE AND ... basically she was criticizing my thinness and just being psychotic and marching up and screaming hello and trapping me in a suffocating hug and trying to force Jesus down my throat and ... she was criticizing my thinness, you see... telling me that I was bad and wrong to be thin and didn't have the right to choose how thin I would be... I have a history of having been fatter than now and then lost the weight and now keep it off white-knuckled. I have white knuckles cause I am still toxic. I am still toxic cause I never lost the habit of compulsive overeating and eating to stuff emotions -- even though I learned to do this non-fatteningly. I have an unhealthy appearance along with the thinness cause of my toxicity. This, and (food-addicted) society's neurotic view of thinness, neurotic pathologization of thinness (which was so commonplace in the 70's -- look at old photos) makes people slap themselves on top of me and basically rape me, trying to tell me that they have the right to force me to eat food. This is their basic message: "you are too thin" means "I disapprove of your aesthetics and so I have the right to violate your physical body, to force-feed you." ... people refuse to realize that the thinness per se is not unhealthy and probably never is -- it is my toxicity that is unhealthy My beatenness and my oppressedness and my humiliation in this situation -- the AA fatso bearing down on me, breathing in my ear as she violatingly embraces me that I have no right to be as thin as I am.... and the worst part -- here I am going to be very honest -- is that as I walked away I felt ashamed of my thinness and horribly terrified -- it was intolerable cause I could not see any way that I could be right and correc tand could not see that my thinness could be okay or acceptable... she was telling me I guess that I was unacceptable as I was and I could not conceive that I was indeed acceptable as i was ... I could not conceive that if I stayed at this weight for life I would still be acceptable or even healthy... it was humiliation.... this thinness is important to me.... I need it... and to be screamed at baldly that it is simply not acceptable... and the horrifyign part -- to believe though I do not want to believe that that person is correct.... this is utter humiliation and horror... I should not be writing this ... I have just made myself too vulnerable... i cannot conceive that my thinness is correct... i do not want to be beaten-raped for it... i want it to be accepted in it... i do not want to .. i have regularly people telling me flat out my body is perfect, too... my body has nothing wrong with it... it is the body of my choice... yet i cannot believe really that my thinness, of my choosing, is really ok... i am reassured as i write this cause i think maybe i jsut dont think it is ok cause these violating food-rapist-type people reject my thinness.. and maybe that is JUST THEIR OPINION and NOT NECESSARILY VALID ... but i really do not know and i have so much more work to do on this...
OK. So I am lazy now and do not want to go further and work this out. I just want to get high. Meaning, I am sitting here subtly anticipating the meal to which I am "entitled" tonight.
I do not know whether i feel "strong" or determined enough to start another attempt-at-three-day-fast.... yet, I am compulsed to find an excuse to eat my evening meal early...

note that I did really well last night in that I BUT IT WAS WHITE KNUCKLE AND I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE THIS WAY... I WANT MY ABSTINENCE FROM OVEREATING TO BE NATURAL AND EASY and I want it to be secure and sure, not shaky, as it is. In order to experience this i have to be detoxed. In order to be detoxed -- to achieve this state -- I have to fast. I HAVE TO FAST AT LENGTH.

GOOD NEWS. One, I did get a bit of a detox from the 34-hour fast. Two, I think I can see my perceived "weakness" or "unwillingness to fast" as pretty much neurotic and not substantive...

I am impatient writing this post cause I just want to get to my regime that I promised myself -- meditation for a long time like 3 or 5 hours... I wish 8 .... i wish i could also do art 8 hours.... goddamnit.... I live with such a sense of failure daily.

I missed posting yesterday and this is NOT OK with me... I need to post every day... I need ... a day count on posting daily... on doing certain committed actions which will all lead me to successful fasting at length... I am feeling insecure. ... I am so frustrated and can't quite resolve it in my mind that it should simply be too much to expect, to do art AND learn to fast. How the hell should I allocate my time????? AND find a place to live.

But let me just voice my difficulties with fasting TODAY. OK. God, I wish I were still fasting cause then for my date I would be calm and not psychotic. For my date I want to have been fasting for a while... but the most of a fast i can manage to do before the date is 24 hours since the date is already only 24 hours away. I am so frustrated. I want to fast 3 days. I want to make a successful 3-day fast. Good that I want this. Just affirm that desire positively. Good. But how can I? When should I do it next.? See, I am feeling guilty and frightened about my thinness. I am feeling it is "too soon" to attempt the three-day fast again. I am doign well with not overeating between fasts thanks to keeping commitments I have made in this forum. ... I have not even thought it out for myself yet and so am posting prematurely and I am too vulnerable and I am just experiencing horrible pressure right now... I want to get to this marathon meditation-therapeutic writing-yoga-art work session and be an impressive person for my date ... and i God I feel such pressure when I post... I put TOO much pressure on myself to post... i post befoer i am ready... but I think the end result is OK because it will jsut become a good automatic habit to post every day and .... HOW can I jolt myself into sobriety -- into fasting -- without beign violent to myself. I am so frustrated and cannot assert myself right now. I get in states liek the one at present where the only way i can assert myself -- and this is not asserting myself at all -- is to lie down and quit and do absolutely nothing -- or, more commonly, just to give up, and compulsively find and excuse to get high -- to eat. THis comes from all the pressure. God, I am frustrated.

so I know I need to achieve a 3 day fast. With the 27 hour fast and the 34 hour fast I have the sense -- wrongly -- that I have "taken care of my fasting for the week," since my standard for myself is to fast once per week... I HAVE GOT TO RAISE MY STANDARD FOR MYSELF... I HAVE GOT TO EXPECT AND ACT MORE FASTING, MORE SOBRIETY. THIS IS POSITIVE AND IT IS NOT OVER-EXPECTATIONS. THIS IS COMPLETELY DO-ABLE. I HAVE GOT TO GET MORE DETOXED AND STAY MORE DETOXED.
Now for the un-fun part, committing and doing it. How can I make this dream of longer fasts and a more detoxed, more alkaling state come true -- what can I do TODAY? What is the right thing to do TODAY?
... is it to start another fast right away????
... I jsut do not want to go into a desperate attempt to use this man of tomorrow my date -- use him and get some kind of cheap contact with him -- and then quickly lose him cause i canot sustain the false self i have presented. THis process of getting cheap contact to help me through a fast... is great if I do fast, and anything that helps me fast is justified, cause that is my LIFE, but I want this relationship to be a real and longer term SUPPORT and a lasting support for fasting. I want to present my real self to this person... I am just so sad that as I can already see i will just be rejected. ... Am I just with the wrong herd of people? Do I just need to get myself into acting school???? I think with my drunkenness (food-overeating-induced) I have been prevented from making the normal kinds of decisions that people healthily make about WHOm they are suited to and whom they want to spend time with. I with the symptoms of the overeater -- lack of boundaries due to teh physically weakened boundary wall of the large intestine, which is so abusively bloated and weakened and gets leaky gut syndrome -- my lack of boundaries makes me think that whoever I happen to be around I have to BE exactly like. So my own preferences don't get listened to or developed. So. I have a dim sense of my real loves and preferences but not enough. I am AFRAID to seek out my true tribe of people. Where do I belong? --with fasting people to begin with, so I am here -- I just want to keep the focus on fasting.



... what should I do today? well. I guess I feel a 3 day fast would be helpful and positive and not too much of a strain and good and I guess I feel ready for another attempt. But I have this doubt. And that makes me afraid. See, what I envision happening is: I go on this date. It is horrible and excruciating. I am beaten and have been bullyingly prevented from asserting myself. I cannot stand the pain or loneliness. Then I go eat.
But what if I were to make a second date. THEN I could on the second date be in a more advanced state of fasting. i could keep my fast with the reward of the second date in mind. But I DOUBT THIS PLAN. HOW can I make this come true. First place -- if I succeed at first date then I will feel successful in life and feel "entitled" to get high -- to eat. Second place -- it just seems like a long time to fast... I have not been able to fast that long lately..... I can convince myself of the healthiness of it though... I can feel that it is healthy.... I can affirm this...
So my decision is to try willy-nilly impatiently and without forethought but to try... to fast 3 days... with the reward being and the motivation being having clarity for a first and for a second date with this guy...

So ... maybe I will also have support for fasting in the form of my friend Jim who has said he might invite me out to his place this week, I understood.


Well avoidance is setting in but I feel sorta committed to this 3 day fast though I have got to refrain from quitting after the date, I have got to make it a real and an important fast, ok. I am scared or frustrated cause I can feel myself sliding into justifying quitting after the date and then restarting again. But I cant do that I -- so I commit to really seriously planning the 3dday fast and maybe a sevenday fast (easier to get excited about and feel proud of and motivated for) and REALLY STARTING IT TODAY despite the fact that this also justifies my going now and eating my evenign meal now (3:15 pm) At least it has been more than 6 hours since last meal. Tho I am abusing my body since my body cannot deal with food now but I am starting a fast so OK I guess... I really need to work these things out in my life and become willing to make more serious and productive and realistic palns and decisions and that is why I am writing these posts, to get there.
Love,
Lauray