I arrived home (very) late last night. Most of today was spent sleeping and stocking up at the jewelry store. I am still very tired and exhausted, but I think by tomorrow it will be better.

I'm glad to be home with family and Aria. And my routine and my own food. It's just...better that way. I like my set way of doing things. I know I needn't be so rigid all the time -- a fight that is easier talked about than won -- but I also like a happy routine. Knowing what is going to be coming next, what to expect, what to plan for. It's one of those things about myself that I need to work on accepting.

Some of the people on my trip didn't think I was "much fun" because I didn't go out much and didn't drink, etc. I wanted to say: what the hell is fun about going to a bar where you can't hear the person next to you? Maybe reading is fun. So is a chat over coffee. It's my kind of fun.

Then I feel bad for getting a little defensive about it. Sometimes, it's easier being busy at school where "free time" isn't an issue. There is no such thing as "free time." But I also don't like it when people look down upon me because I'm not like them.

The responses I got to my eating disorder were odd. Some people did look down on me as some sort of vain little girl. But a lot, people seemed to look up to me. That I could be Strong. Thin. Perfect. I was a creature of envy. I'm not used to that. And though the anorexia isolated me horribly, and made me hate myself like I could never imagine a person hating themself, it also made me feel a tad better. Because I had something that no one else had, and that they also wanted. Maybe people envied my GPA. Some probably did. But I didn't get that response of "How do you do it?" that I did with anorexia.

I think maybe it was because the trade-offs were more obvious. With studying all the time, I was No Fun. People wanted a life, they wanted friends, so they accepted (willingly or not) that the 4.0 GPA wasn't going to happen. But with an eating disorder, denying myself dessert was nothing compared to being a Size 0. That was something they wanted. Skipping dessert might be No Fun, but it was Worth It.

The therapists I had in treatment focused a lot on this. How it might have been a cause of my eating disorder. Not necessarily THE cause, but A cause. I looked at the situation like an anthropologist. I wasn't looking for cause and effect. Just looking. Observing.

Certainly, this was a maintenance factor, and one beyond brain chemistry. There were many of those, factors that led to resistance to recovery. Culture was a big part of that. It was easier to look at models and a culture of dieting than to examine serotonin dysfunction in the brain. It was easier to grasp. And it was much, much more obvious.