I don't know what to do.

I'm so confused, and I don't know how to make sense of everything that's going on in my head right now.

I stayed up all night talking with one of my closest friends about how I've been feeling lately. And half way through the conversation, she tells me she straight up, you need to recover. Not physically per se, but mentally. She tells me I need to let go of all these numbers in my head, all these rules, restrictions, limits I place on myself - otherwise I'll go insane.

The long and short of it is, we had a really in depth/interesting conversation that rotated around society; the 'ideal' we're all cleaving to (which is actually bullshit, because being thin does not necessarily = power, happiness, and sexuality, despite what we're all brainwashed to think); feminism, eating disorders, short and long-term health and happiness. By the end of the night, I was utterly convinced (and yes, it was 3am) that the way forward was to give up this thing once and for all. To let go of weighing, counting, controlling, obsessing, and just live my life free of burden.

I woke up with a new purpose. I didn't step on the scales, I vowed to go according to hunger and the satisfaction that intuitive eating would give me. I had an amazing day - probably the happiest day of this year so far. I spent the afternoon in the sun with my three best girl friends, my sister, and my mum's boyfriend's son (I'll probably start referring to him less-long-windedly in the future as my stepbrother, as that's close to what I now consider him). We got Mexican food, sipped ice-cold frappuccinos on a lawn somewhere, smoked, and dozed off, drenched in light. I caught up with each and every one of them, and nothing was poisoned, or tainted, by my usual worries/anxieties. I just felt... free. Then we all came home sapped of energy but content, and my mum and her boyfriend made us dinner. We all sat around the table like a big happy family, laughing, eating, enjoying our food. It was a perfect day, in my eyes.

Until 11pm, when my head feels clouded suddenly, and I'm possessed to step on those dreaded bathroom scales. And then the perfect mirage was over, the moment I saw 160 flash up at me.

I can't do this. If it's a choice between my happiness/freedom and gaining weight, or mild stress/obsessive self-destructing anxiety and losing just a few pounds, I'm more inclined to take the latter, as awful as that sounds. I CAN'T get heavier. I cannot, will not do it. Not if it means happiness, or better self-confidence... because it will be a deluded happiness. The kind of deluded happiness experienced by fat people who are in love with food and being full and are in complete denial about how they appear to the outside world.

It does matter to me. Okay, I said it. This matters to me. I can't give this thing up. I never ever ever want to see that number on my scales... EVER again. It was like a nightmare. I was 135 lbs this time last year, I can't be up 25 lbs by then, it's just... it's disgusting. Repulsive. Shameful, and totally mortifying.

I don't know what to do. I'm just freaking out. I don't know whether to persevere with 600 calories/day, pretending this blip never happened.

But it DID happen. I experienced life 'on the other side'. And even if it was only for a long afternoon, it made an impact on me, and there's no shutting that off. Ugh.

My knee-jerk reaction is to stem the damage by restricting as much as I can this week, even if it means being rude at social arrangements, or seeing friends between meal times. Because there is no way on this earth that I'm going to exceed 160 lbs in this lifetime. No. Fucking. Way.

Maybe I'm going crazy. Maybe, after all this, I've finally just gone bloody crazy.