“Are you sure you’re not thinking too much?” friends ask.

Of course I’m not sure. That’s like asking me “Are you sure when you exhale it’s carbon dioxide that’s coming out?” I have no way of actually knowing this, so I just take everyone’s word for it. But I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening. No matter what’s happening when I exhale, however, there’s nothing I can do to control it.

Same with my thinking. I probably am thinking too much. I always do. The thing is, I can’t stop. Yeah, yeah, there’s always meditation and all that other crap, but sorry, I’m too busy/clinically depressed to try any of that right now. All I have are my racing thoughts.

Why am I letting this effect me? Why, after getting the bulimia under control (more control than I’ve ever been able to in the past) am I suddenly slipping into its grasp again? The only answer I can come up with is that I’m freaking the fuck out. Maybe I should back track a little. Yes? Okay. Here we go.

About a month ago I started talking to my good friend Ashley’s brother Mike. I’d heard a lot about him and seen pictures of him through Ashley’s facebook and things like that, but never actually met him. I’d even told Ashley I thought her brother was super hot, her usual reaction being “Sick! That’s my brother. And I’m never setting you up. If things get weird, I don’t want it to affect our friendship.” Perfectly valid. That was as far as it went. Then, one night about a month and a half ago, she texted me saying “Are you ready to get all giggly?” Of course I said yes. I love nothing more than a case of the giggles. She informed me that her brother saw my picture on Facebook and thought I was cute. Aw, sweet. I thought that was the end of that.

While I was visiting my friend Jen in Madison at the beginning of January, Ashley texts me and says “Here’s Mike’s number. Maybe you should text him and see if you guys have anything in common and if  it would be worth hanging out.” Um, thanks but no thanks. I wasn’t going to text someone I hadn’t even met and say “Hi, what’s up?” Talk about stimulating conversation. However, Ash had apparently given Mike my number as well, since I received a message from an unknown number about an hour later. We started talking, and it was nice. He was easy to talk to, he was funny, and we seemed to have things in common. For the rest of the week, we texted each other every day. We finally met that weekend at a bar with Ashley and some of their other friends.

Long story short, we’ve been hanging out ever since. I haven’t slept with him (I have really stuck with my No More Sluttiness Rule) and we’ve only made out with a little bit more. We’ve hung out a lot and it’s been great. Really, really great. I-don’t-know-how-to-describe-it-great. The kind of great I didn’t want to write about because I thought if I did, it would all go away. Thing is, I’m worried that’s happening. All of a sudden, he doesn’t seem that eager to see me anymore. Last week, we hadn’t seen each other for a day or two, and he was texting me “I miss you” and things of that nature. This week, it’s Friday, I haven’t seen him since Monday, and last night while we were talking about hanging out, he mentioned next week sometime. Oh, okay. Cue the bingeing and purging.

I haven’t told a lot of people about Mike because I didn’t want to get my hopes up. However, it seems like whether I told people or not, my hopes were higher than a motherfucking kite, if the lows I experienced in response to my insecurity were any indication. The urge to binge and purge has not been so strong in so long. I know it’s not his fault. I’m not deluded enough to think that. It’s just the stress of the situation and my own fucking expectations and problems and blah blah blah. I don’t know. I know it’s only been a month, but I already feel as if I’ve gotten to know him so much and we’ve gotten close and now if things start disappearing, what do I do? How the fuck do I get through this without my head shoved in a toilet?

But NO MORE. I am now the younger, contact-wearing, more normal(ish) version of the feminazi. The Everyday Feminazi. The Feminazi Next Door! Yep. After three consecutive, unsuccessful, and frustrating as FUCK experiences with the XY set, I am done.

Hey, guess what! Don’t piss off someone who writes or your likeness (or, if it’s someone with less tact than me, your actual identity, or a thinly veiled pseudonym) will become public along with your douchiness.

Let’s examine the aforementioned dickheads, shall we?

Boy #1: The One Who Leads You On For No Apparent Reason

No, this is not the guy that only sleeps with you and suddenly stops calling. I’m pretty sure everyone knows what that guy wants. Rather, this rare species will definitely NOT have slept with you. No, but they will emotionally fuck you hardcore. They’re (supposedly) really interested in things you’ve done (You lived in San Diego?! Oh, my gosh! So does my brother!! Tell me all about it), have similar interests (You’re annoyed at misused grammar too?! Well, golly gee!) and will do/say sweet things for you (e.g. take your shoes off for you when you’re far too drunk to stand, kiss you and tell you you’re gorgeous, etc.). No one else even gets his attention when you’re there. He didn’t ask you out, but you have a strong feeling that’s in the near future. Until…..HE COMPLETELY STOPS TALKING TO YOU. No more texts, no more comments on your wall, no more conversation when you’re in the same room with him. He’ll then go on to claim he was never interested in you in the first place and feigns surprise when discovering that you, in fact, liked him. Asshole.

Boy #2: The One Who Instantly Falls In Love With You But Isn’t Ready For a Relationship

This is the boy you’re surprised wants to date you at first, because you slept with him the day you met him (yeah, yeah, kind of slutty, let’s move on). However, the second night you hang out, he starts planning all these fun things you two will have to do in the future when you hang out. He calls you at 2:00 am and asks you to pick him up because his friend got arrested for a DUI and he needs a ride to his house 40 minutes away. You do it, then get called a whore by his mom when you drop her son off at 4:30 in the morning (really, lady? A Badgers sweatshirt and blue pajama pants with little skiiers on them is what you think I wear when I’m walking the streets?). However, this boy BEGS you to meet his family again because he knows they’ll love you. You meet them and they DO love you. So does his sister. He eagerly tells you he wants to meet your dad when he’s in town. He claims you gave his life meaning and are the best thing that happened to him….AFTER YOUR FIRST DATE. He calls you his girlfriend and refers to himself as your boyfriend. You stupidly continue the relationship, thinking maybe your own insecurities are to blame about feeling weird (Hint: They’re not. This boy is clearly more mentally unstable than you are). This boy will tell you he loves you after a month, then a week later text you saying “I’m sorry…I’m not ready for a relationship.” Umm….WHAT?! Were you cracked out for the last month or did you recently get amnesia? Fucker.

Boy #3: The One Who Takes It Super Slow….But Not Out of Respect for You; He’s Just an Engineer With No Real Feelings

Ahh, Boy #3. The one who texted me today as I was walking into therapy (excellent timing, douchebag!) to confirm your breakup text with a mere “We’ve come to the same conclusion. Good luck.” Gee, I didn’t realize I was texting an AUTOMATIC RESPONSE SERVICE! This is the boy that, at first, seems to be the diamond in the rough: extremely smart, going places in life, attractive, fun, and chivalrous. He jumps at the chance to drive you home instead of your friend, opens the car doors for you, pays for everything, and doesn’t even expect you to sleep with him. He’s easy to talk to, fun to be around, and you actually start thinking this could be going somewhere. You’ve been on 5 or 6 dates and haven’t even had sex yet (Yeah, who’s a slut now?!)! He’s a great kisser and patient when teaching you how to play pool. However, once you hang out with him and his friends, he basically ignores you. Then he stops returning your texts. You think “What the fuck? I’ve just been rejected by two other guys. I am not sitting around waiting for it to happen again.” So you wake up at 6 am and send him a text explaining this, while still a bit incoherent from sleep (the text is still well-written with perfect grammar, however. This is you we’re talking about!). He doesn’t text you back until the aforementioned happening of you walking into therapy. You’re expecting something like “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was doing that!” or “No, but I DO want to date you!” blah blah. Nope. Instead you get a brusque brush-off and a shit ton of material to talk about with your therapist for the next 50 minutes. Cocksucker.

So, to sum this all up: fuck you. Grow up. Don’t you have any fucking emotions?! (Those were in order for the respective boys).

The End.

I’m having trouble sleeping unless I binge and purge. Literally, I’ve taken Xanax (prescribed by my psych, thankyouverymuch), Tylenol Pm, sometimes a combo of the two (bad, I know) to help me sleep at night. Even if I fall asleep, I wind up waking up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep unless I binge and purge. Sometimes, laying in bed at night after purging, I hope that my heart will stop beating in the middle of the night. I don’t think I want to die, but living like this is complete hell in itself. I don’t want to go into treatment again. I’ve been there 3 times and absolutely NOTHING changed for me. I’m not saying anything about the programs themselves (well…maybe the one I went to in Milwaukee. I definitely won’t be giving their Ed program 5-stars), but about my motivation. The only time I’ve gone into treatment or wanted to go into treatment was to stop bingeing because I was scared of weight gain. With this as a motive, there’s really no way one can recover from their eating disorder. I don’t regret any of the treatments I’ve been to, as I’ve met amazing people and have learned something from each place I’ve gone to, but honestly, going into treatment again (and when I say “treatment”, I mean either an IOP, PHP, or IP program. I’m seeing a therapist roughly every two weeks and a psychiatrist about once a month, but I don’t consider myself to be “in treatment”) would be a colossal waste of time.  I have enough self-awareness to know that without the motivation to truly get better, the best therapists and eating disorder programs in the world won’t be enough to help.

And that’s another thing. If bulimia is making my life so miserable, why WOULDN’T I want to recover? My only answer: it’s complicated. As much as I hate it…as much as it makes me feel out of control, as much as I worry about not being able to purge everything and gaining weight, as much as it exhausts me, dehydrates me, makes my throat sore, sucks up my time and money, I get something from it. Obviously. People don’t do something like this to themselves if they don’t benefit it some way. With Ed, my mind shuts off for a while. I have something to do when I’m pissed, sad, tired, or even happy. I have excuses for why I’m depressed (“I binged and purged today”). In a sick way, it gives me somewhat of a superiority complex: “What do they expect? I’m suffering from an eating disorder…give me a break!” and things of that nature.

I start thinking I really want to recover. To me, recovery is no more bingeing and purging. Actually, to be specific, it’s no more bingeing. I normally don’t purge unless I binge, but if I do, I don’t feel guilty. Restricting, purging, overexercising…those things don’t make me want to recover, because if I keep them up, they could potentially lead to weight loss. However, it’s the bingeing that worries me. I don’t want to gain any weight. Fuck no. I know I didn’t purge everything last night which is why I feel so guilty. I hate that I do this to myself. However, when I try to analyze the situation, I wonder “Do I really hate it?” Yes, the guilt and shame and body hatred I feel afterwords is insurmountable, but the relief and numbness I get from the behaviors itself is exactly what I’m seeking at the time. When I’m acting out bulimic behaviors, I am no longer myself. I am nothing. A separate entity that has absolutely no mind/body connection. Once I get the thought in my head that I want to go on a binge/purge rampage, there is little to no stopping me, even if I haven’t thought about it all day.

My therapist stares at me, her expression one of anticipation, waiting for me to contest her statement, with one of my usual “But, wait! You don’t understand,”‘s

Silence.

What can I say to that? It’s true. As I sit here, after my second binge/purge of the day, feeling the post-purge high, this little nugget of wisdom swims around in my head. I’m stressed, I’m overwhelmed, overworked, underpaid (haha), etc., etc., and this is the only thing that makes it better.

How much can I stress this? My life is a fucking wreck at the moment. People are mad at me, papers are due, interviews are rapidly approaching, and I’ve been bingeing and purging more than I’ve been sleeping lately. I’m sad, I’m scared, I’m angry, and most of the time, I fucking hate myself.

I want to be okay. What this entails, exactly, I’m not sure. Sometimes I just want to see my mom, have her hug me, tell me everything’s going to be okay. But then I talk to her on the phone and there’s nothing I’m more grateful for than the 3,000 miles that separate us. Sometimes I need to reach out, so I do my text-a-treatment friend method, which is otherwise known as “Reaching Out for Pussies.” I don’t go to an actual person, someone I see on a daily basis, because I’m embarrassed. But I think I have a right to be, up to a point. To talk to someone who has absolutely no idea what this demon inside of you feels like seems like a wasted effort. And I’m pretty sure their advice would contain the requisite “Don’t worry, it will be okay,” interspersed in there at some point.

Well, you know? It WON’T fucking be okay. Now, in addition to my Cymbalta, I’m going to be on Prozac. And you know you’re crazy when your therapist goes away for two weeks and your life falls apart. Damn you, therapist! How dare you relax and take time for yourself?! Can’t you see I need you??

But seriously, they should give you a substitute or something, something or someone that will encourage you to just put the gun down, move away from the ledge, turn of the ignition, etc. etc.

Not that I’m at that point. I don’t think. I’m just too scared, to be honest. What if it doesn’t work? And if it does, what happens after? And as miserable as I am right now, I don’t think I want to die. I wonder about people who commit suicide; did they get to the point where, if they were walking down the street and a car was coming towards them, they didn’t tense up? Or try to run? Is such a thing really possible? I thought survival was part of our instincts, that in some situations you just can’t help it. Who knows?

My hands hurt.

All I’ve been doing is bingeing and purging the past couple of days. As unimportant as it sounds in the scheme of things, I’m most terrified of gaining weight. My binges only disgust me if I don’t purge everything up. Last night, for example. I know I didn’t purge everything I binged on, and thinking about what those certain items were makes me feel like an out of control, fat cow.

My brain hurts from the mental anguish of the last few days. I just want this to go away. I want to sleep for days. I need a break from this. Please.

I’ve dug my binge food out of the garbage twice in the last two days. I’ve spent the entire day–my one day a week that I have no classes (yes, on a Wednesday, I know it’s weird) and one of the most BEAUTIFUL days this year so far (granted, there’s been 2)–bingeing and purging. My therapist is going on vacation and I won’t see her again until April 21–that’s like 20 days away! I have to wait almost 3 times longer to see her again than I normally do.

I’m so scared that my life is going to spiral into what it was two years ago, in the summer of 2008. Or worse. That was the summer I came back from California for the first time, out of my first treatment center, and convinced that Ed was behind me and that my old life would be here, waiting to embrace me with open arms. How very wrong I was. I do feel as if I’ve put that part of my life behind me, for the most part. It’s just that this will be my first summer here since then, and the combination of warm weather and trips to the grocery store, followed by long periods in the bathroom, have some pretty bad associations. As if they’re not bad enough on their own.

I need my mom to tell me she loves me. I called her a minute ago, just so I could ask her that question. She didn’t answer. She’s at work. As much as she pisses me off, right now, all I want from her is a hug and a kiss and reassurance that everything will be all right. I don’t want to be an adult. I don’t want to think about the future. I want to regress back into childhood where everything was safe and mommy knew best and it was all fun and play time and imagination. Nothing could go wrong.

My hands are dry from shoving my fingers down my throat. My teeth hurt. My mind hurts. My heart hurts. I’m scared. And I feel completely alone.

The “unrequited like” I wrote about earlier? It is most definitely unrequited in every sense of the word. To be honest, it’s kind of mutually unrequited at this point. Let’s rewind to last night, shall we?

Okay, the guy in this story–the love interest–is called M. I met him through my friend (pseudonym) Anne. Since I’ve been suspecting that M isn’t interested in me, it’s been driving me crazy. Had he never shown interest in me initially, I wouldn’t care. But he did. He showed a lot of interest. Mucho interest, as they say south of the border. He told one of our mutual (but really, more of his) friends that he’s interested in dating me. He asked Anne if she thought I liked him. We flirted, kissed, slept in bed together (the literal form of the verb “slept”).

So last night I was determined to get to the bottom of this. I was going to ask M outright if he liked me or not. Now, this requires an extreme amount of liquor on my part since my history of confrontation is null and void, as I’ve never confronted anyone before. I avoid confrontation the way Edward Cullen avoids being in the sun in public. However, I needed to know. And I even planned it out with my friend AZ that if I didn’t get the chance to ask him in person, I’d text him something like “It seemed like you were showing interest in me, and I was definitely interested. Now I’m not so sure how you feel. Do you like me?” With plan in hand, I drove to M’s apartment.

The first thing I noticed upon entering was that C was there, a girl that M and my friend Anne work with. C happens to be a girl that M had a huge crush on and even made out with once when he was drunk, despite the fact that C has had a boyfriend (who was at one point her fiance, but called it off, but they’re still together, possibly engaged again) of 7 years that she lives with. She was dating her boyfriend the time she made out with M, by the way. Two weeks ago, when all of this doubting-if-M-likes-me business started, the catalyst was C popping up unexpectedly (unexpected for me, anyway) at M’s apartment. I closed up, felt super inferior and depressed. Even though her presence caught me off guard last night, I wasn’t going to let it foil my plans. I had a mission to complete, and I was going to do it.

The night started off as pretty fun, and as the consumption of liquor increased, so did the sense of merriment. Body shots were taken off my stomach (“You have the PERFECT belly button for shots!”), crazy pictures were taken, girls started making out with each other, etc. You know, just another Saturday night. Every time M talked to C, I tried to analyze body language. Did he seem more attentive to her than others? Did he go out of his way to include her in conversation? Yes and yes. But maybe I was just being paranoid.

M didn’t pay me any special attention during the evening. At one point, M and C were standing up, talking to one another, and her hand was in his. By this point I was too drunk to drive home, so I was stuck there. I looked away.

C is actually a great girl. Super cute, funny, sweet. I can definitely see why M would be attracted to her. We joked around, took pictures. I want to be this girl’s friend. But I don’t want M to like her, because I want him to like me.

C left then, to my great relief. Anne had an emotional breakdown about a boy she’s dating thanks to a copious amount of Jagermesiter consumed, but everything she was drunkenly sobbing about this boy, I related to with M. My heart was aching for her and I, too, wanted to curl up and spill what was on my mind.

People eventually started leaving or falling asleep. I was laying on the couch, with M sitting on the end. When he got up, Anne’s friend Sara took his spot. He came back and sat in a chair next to her. I was in and out of consciousness when they started talking. I was half listening, half trying to get to sleep. After a while (I think I’d fallen asleep for part of this, too), they started talking about relationships. A normal enough conversation. However, in the course of this exchange, M revealed some very discouraging things about him.

He said how he didn’t like people sleeping in bed with him. How, when someone else is there, it’s too hot and crowded and he doesn’t like it. Gee, is that what he thought all those times I slept in bed with him? I wondered.

He said that silence between people bothers him. That there always has to be some kind of talking. And if he has nothing to talk about with a person, he won’t really be interested in them anymore. I thought back to the Sunday, two weeks ago, when I went with him and two of his friends to the movies. I felt extremely shy that day, as it was my first time hanging out with him without Anne. Since I really liked M, I second-guessed everything I said to him and wasn’t able to be my usual self. Even though I’d met his friends before, I still didn’t really know them. I didn’t talk much that day and he didn’t try to engage me in much conversation.

He also said something along the lines of not being interested in anyone at the moment. This part is kind of hazy, like trying to remember a dream hours after it happened. When you first wake up, it’s crystal clear and you remember every detail, but throughout the course of the day it becomes blurred. Sara said something about how it feels good to love someone, I remember that part. And M said something like “The reason I don’t have that feeling right now is…” etc etc. Now, of course, I wouldn’t expect this guy to be in love with me. That’s insane. But by the way he was talking, it was pretty clear he’s not even close to pursuing a relationship.

I couldn’t take listening to this anymore. They wouldn’t stop talking, and each word he was saying was a knife to my fucking heart. I wasn’t going to be able to go to sleep, and I just wanted to go home. I was hot, thirsty, uncomfortable, and if I heard him say one more thing, I’d be making suicide plans for later that day.

I got up and started rummaging around for my shoes.

“What are you looking for, babe?” Sara asked.

“My shoes.”

“Are you going somewhere?” she joked. It was 5 am.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go home. I…don’t feel well,” I said.

“What? Are you sure? Are you okay to drive?”

I was. I’d sobered up a while ago, thank God. I finally found my shoes and my purse. When M was in the bathroom, Sara asked me if everything was okay. I broke into tears.

“I….I…heard everything he was saying and I’m just…so…stupid!!!” Sara hugged me and I continued crying for a minute, but M came out of the bathroom and I wasn’t going to let him see me like this.

“Okay, bye.” I sniffled.

“Are you okay?” M asked.

“Yep, bye.”

In the hallway outside his apartment, I let out a sob that I fear was audible from M’s unit. But who the fuck cared? It’s not like he liked me anyway. Let the fucker hear me cry. I drove home in a watery blur, my eyes blinded by my tears of frustration. Throughout the 20-minute drive, I screamed questions only I could hear.

“What the fuck is his problem?”

“Why did he bother showing interest in me at all if he’s going to change his fucking mind?! It’s not fair to me! Just leave me the fuck alone!!”

When I got home, I put on my pajamas and collapsed into bed, secure in the knowledge that M wasn’t anywhere near me and I could sob myself to sleep if I wanted to. I didn’t. I passed out. Anne called me this morning, asking if I was okay and apologizing for being passed out when everything went down. She said she’s going to bitch out M today. We’ll see what happens.

I haven’t binged and purged yet. I don’t really have the urge to right now, but who knows? Maybe as more information about the situation surfaces I will. I feel kind of numb about the whole thing, actually. Like it happened to someone else. At the moment, I don’t feel heartbroken. Just really tired. Maybe after more sleep, I’ll feel something. But right now, I don’t. And I’m happy about that.

Whoever said pain is worse than numb was a fucking idiot. Even more so than I am.

I’m thinking of where I am now in regards to my ED and where I was three years ago. On the outside, it looks like I’m better. I’m not rail thin and I’m menstruating, for one. But just because I look “healthy” (I hate that fucking word) doesn’t mean anything. If bulimia revealed itself the same way anorexia did, I know for sure people would ask me “Are you okay??” It hurts, I’m not going to lie. Eating disorders are fucked up mental illnesses, and as much as I hate mine and it makes me miserable and I’m ashamed of it, there’s a perverse part of me that wants people to know. When I say this, I’m referring to the time when I was anorexic. I loved when people told me “Whoa! You’re so skinny!” or “You should eat something!” If people jokingly asked “Do you eat??”, I got off on it. I never realized this until one night, in my dorm, I was reading a magazine article about the actress Brittany Snow, who used to suffer from anorexia. In the article she talked about really liking when people thought she was so thin she must have an eating disorder, and all of a sudden, I realized I did too.

“YES!” I shouted in my head. I finally pinpointed it. I mentioned it to one of my friends later on, and she told me that it was a really sick and fucked up way of thinking. Come to think of it, she and I aren’t friends anymore. Huh.

But bulimia is so different. Some people may achieve thinness through it, but I’ve never been one of them. To me, bulimia isn’t about being thin. Of course, losing weight and being skinny is (and I’m ashamed of this) one of the things I want most in the world. But that’s not why I eat a week’s worth of food and once and then throw it up. I know that these behaviors will more likely lead to weight gain than weight loss (a fact that I take for granted but that the non-ED community may not be familiar with). But bulimia gives me something that starving myself was never able to provide: an extreme amount of comfort. If I’m lonely, sad, depressed, bored, feeling sorry for myself, nothing numbs the pain like a good ol’ fashioned binge and purge session. The not eating and overexercising provided something different. It’s hard for me to put my finger on it.  Maybe now, in my life, I need more comfort than I did before. I don’t know. This is me trying to psycho-analyze myself. As I don’t even have my bachelor’s yet, I’m probably not qualified.

It sucks, having someone build you up and then let you down (suddenly, the song “Build Me Up Buttercup” is in my head). I really need to start doing that for myself. Actually, I’m just saying that because I’m so used to being in therapy that I can give myself therapeutic responses for low self-esteem comments like that one. Theoretically, though, it’s true: I should feel good about myself, regardless of any male validation. But that helps. Good Lord, does it help. When someone’s telling you you’re gorgeous (someone you’re attracted too, no less), it makes you feel great. Really, really great. And then to feel completely shut out by that person a few days later…well, that sucks. And the caveat is….WE DIDN’T SLEEP TOGETHER! So all you nay-sayers who are thinking “Well, it was obviously just sex, what does this girl expect?”–NO IT WASN’T! And it’s not because I DIDN’T put out that I’m getting the cold shoulder, either (I don’t think). From my sources, this is the type of guy that likes to take his time to get to know a girl and who doesn’t hook up with just anyone. And believe me, I was drunk, semi-passed out, and IN HIS BED…if he wanted to try something, he could’ve!

I guess the non-event that is our non-relationship triggered a lot of negative things in me. My fear of rejection, my inferiority complex, my fear of never finding anyone to be my “other half.” My eating disorder has been out of control this past week–literally, it’s disgusting. As I type, my stomach is fucking KILLING me, as I binged before and had trouble purging. Which pisses me off. What the fuck is wrong with me?! You’d think my body would know by now–EMIT THIS FOOD IMMEDIATELY! We do NOT want to digest this! Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit!

Ugh. I have problems. I want to be happy, confident, pretty, fun, intelligent, driven, motivated, successful, fulfilled…I just have no idea how to get there. And even if I did, I might be too busy bingeing and purging to do so.