Urges

What is an urge? Dr. Fox just gave me some Risperdal to take "when I'm feeling an urge." The catch is it apparently takes an hour to work which means it's pretty useless to fight off a truly intense can't-think-about-anything-else urge. Urges can come on slowly, or they can strike very suddenly. Sometimes you'll know they're coming and other times you'll be caught completely off-guard.

I usually know I'll be getting some pretty forceful urges to cut myself when I'm on the phone about ready to hang up. It doesn't matter who I'm talking to, the phone in general just makes me so extremely anxious that the only way I know how to calm myself down afterwards is by stabbing myself with the nearest sharp object.

Urges to binge and purge are usually more random. Of course if I go a whole day barely eating then come 9:00 I'm ravenous and ready to eat whatever happens to be in the fridge. Oftentimes though I get these urges for no particular reason. I may have just eaten a healthy dinner, seemingly fine with it all, and then suddenly, ten minutes later I'm scouring the kitchen for something, anything, to binge on. I settle on a pack of plain hot dog buns and a bag of half-eaten m&ms. Whatever I can get my hands on. Sometimes that'll be enough to make the urge subside, other times I have to keep at it until the anxious feelings lessen. This may take three, four, five, or more binge and purge episodes.