The Black Hole

I have just gone through my fourth black hole, as I like to refer to them.  Times where I am so into beating myself up, getting to into my head, and eating horribly that I oftentimes think there is no end to the darkness.

I’m always wrong. I always see some light… it usually comes in the revalation of what I am doing that is not healthy… the light is something I haven’t seen before. It’s new.  I don’t hear the voice yet… the voices I hear are still those of family telling me bad things, giving unsolicited negative comments, or telling me to pull it together and not feel what I’m feeling because it’s simply not acceptable to feel or show emotions.

The thing I like is that my black holes (sort of like tunnels) are getting shorter and shorter in length and time.  I am at my worst – binging, negative thinking, self-destructive behaviors. But, there is always an end. An out.  Relief.

The relief is becoming longer and longer. The tunnels – shorter and shorter.

I always thought I was so wierd to be going through this and realized only this past week that this is totally normal.  Many compulsive overeaters and addicts go through this very same thing, over and over… until the black holes (“tunnels”) are almost as short as the relief – – and from that point onward – relief comes on a daily basis.

I am so happy to have the fellowship of my friends who struggle like I do.  I’m new at program, and many times, feel I cannot do it alone.  The only thing that gets me through is knowing that they have walked the path long before me, can guide me, and have been successful.

Fog

I’m in a fog. I’ve had some recent changes in my life and schedule that have me floundering… I run so hard I forget about eating, bio-breaks, meditation, calm.  The pace is fast and I run with the wind.

I need to be gentle with myself and establish boundaries… set up times I will eat, pee (sorry, lol), read motivating literature.  These activites will ensure my serenity.

I have to find out how to work them into my schedule and guarantee they happen.

I like to be flexible and throw myself into what I do, but have to balance that with what is good for me.  This is hard.  Foreign.  I hope I have the strength to make this happen.

You crave, I crave

A fellow OA was talking about wanting to eat a specific non-abstinent food.  Luckily, my fellow OA went home and didn’t have the binge, but rather ate abstinently.  However, an hour or two later, I was craving that very same food the person mentioned and it’s not even something I would normally crave.

I was up all night thinking about that food item and how badly I wanted it.  My disease was working hard to convince me that I wanted it, could get it at a specific 24 hour grocery store, would love it, and above all deserved it.  I tossed and turned in the warm humid night trying to make the images and food voice go away, but they didn’t.

I got up at 4 am.  I’d had enough.  I made some coffee and sat, listening to what I recalled as the first nocturnal buzzing sound of either frogs or bugs.  I can’t say I was meditating, but I was relaxed and it was only after a good half an hour that the food thoughts left me.  I’m not sure if it was the coffee, the sitting, or both, but thank goodness.

It freaked me out how one person’s momentary craving could transfer onto me and how subconsciously ready I was to claim it as my own.  I think this person could have said they were really in the mood for some chocolate covered worms and I would have craved them too.  Funny, lol.  But, also not funny.

I’m trying to make sense of this, but am also trying to not think too hard about it.  I feel like I’ve been thinking too much and have been too “in my head” for the last week while trying to eat abstinently.

My emotions are twenty times more intense and I’m not quite sure what to do with them since I can’t grab food.  Reading program literature has been sucking me in deeper (perhaps this is good) and other types of diversions (cleaning, casual reading, trying to take a nap, etc.) don’t really pull me out of my head.

Hopefully things will get easier as I gain more abstinence under my belt.

Eat More?

As recommended by OA and in line with OA tradition, I went to see a nutritionist today.  I wanted to get a professional opinion on what the food plan I created for myself should look like.  I wondered how far off I was from what I should be doing, after all I compiled my food plan from a variety of sources, plans, and my own thought of what nutrition was.

Well, was I way off.  The nutritionist brought me from 1,400/cal/day to 2,100/cal/day.  She explained to me in detail how she derived this number which was personalized for my exact weight, height, age, fat percentage, basal metabolic rate, etc.  I finally had an understanding of the physiology behind it.  Don’t ask me to explain the math formulas, those were over my head, lol.

I almost fell on the floor, lol.  This was the first time someone told me to eat more.  At first, I laughed.  Eat more.  This is a first.  I’ve been told to not eat, or eat less, or eat something better ever since I was a child.

Then it hit me again that I really do have a disease.  It’s not just addiction to food, but I have gained a twisted way of thinking.  My understanding of nutrition has been warped by years of dieting and crash dieting.  I was still stuck in a “starve myself to lose weight” mentality.  I was treating this like a diet, not a way of life.

So, as the shock factor wears off, I am ready to take this professional opinion and make a go of it and eat what she suggests.  We’ll see how the next two weeks go.

And after all this, I still can’t help but wonder – how many calories a day did I eat when I was binging? 

I don’t even want to know.

Learning to Let Go

I mentioned to a friend how good I am at beating myself up emotionally and how bad I am at letting things go.

I can hold onto all sorts of things and continue to revisit them over and over and over.  Anything really.  My weight.  My relationships.  What I ate.  The quantity I ate.  What I may have said to someone.  My fear of the unknown.  My past.  My fear of sharing my thoughts and feelings with others.  My weaknesses.  Sometimes even my strengths.  The list can go on and on.

This friend mentioned that she has a “God Box” and it helps her give things over to God and release them.  She explained that a God Box is a box where I can take whatever is bothering me, write it on a slip of paper, and place it in the box.  The purpose is to give the item over to God to handle from that point onward.

The idea was intriguing to me so I went online to learn more and to see if others use a God Box.  The webpage that I liked the most, because it didn’t get to religious but was more spiritual, was http://www.teras-wish.com/godbox.htm.

So, I’ve decided that over the next day or two (depending on when I can find the box and decor that I want to work with) I am going to create my God Box.

My Food History

My sponsor asked me to write about “my history with food,” however it might come out, freestyle.  So, I journaled for about an hour, writing six or so pages.

It was truly enlightening.  I realized that my use of food as love and as a numbing agent was learned at a very young age (probably when I was 5 or 6) when my mother began baking treats to compensate for both the traumatic family event we were going through and to compensate for the time we spent separated. 

According to some of my memories, a year or so later I began sneaking food.  Imagine that, sneaking food at night while in Elementary School!

I can remember having actual hardcore binges while in Middle School.  From early Middle School onward, I packed on the pounds. Forget about when I got my own car – that was when eating fast food on the sly became a daily habit.

Not even gastric bypass could save me from the vicious cycle I was on.  Since having surgery many years ago, I’ve gained back almost all of the weight that I lost.  I regret ever having that surgery.  Not only am I left with ongoing health problems directly related to the surgery, but I am angry at myself for now realizing how pointless gastric bypass is because it never addressed my relationship with food or my emotional eating.

For the majority of my life, I’ve been grabbing something to eat to make myself feel better or numb out (mask) what I am beginning to feel.  I’m not sure how to handle my feelings without food, and believe me, when abstinent the feelings feel twenty times stronger.

I think I’ll begin making a list of things that I can do or techniques that I can use as an alternative to eating in emotional moments.  This might sound weird, but I think making this list is going to be harder than I think.

Back On Track

Well, I’ve basically wasted almost a month.  Shortly after March 10th, I fell off the wagon and resumed binge eating.  Not good.  Even worse that I couldn’t get out of the hole I was eating myself into.  I emotionally beat myself up over the first binge, which led to a second binge, a third, and here I am starting all over again.

I’ve connected with a temporary sponsor and am glad to be able to call my food into him and get his feedback.  I know I can’t do this myself, which is a hard thing for me to admit because I was raised to be self-sufficient and strong.  But, I do realize I need to be accountable to someone other than myself, a policing of sorts, in order to be successful.

In hindsight, I could kick myself for the wasted month, but also need to learn how to stop punishing myself and put it behind me.  If anyone has this mastered or has read a book on how to do this, let me know, lol… because it’s something I do all the time and really need to stop.

I keep reminding myself… ODAT.

That Out of Control Feeling

Wow… last night was rough.  I had some stressors during the day that were slowly bringing me down… I heard from an old friend who has the life I wish I had (husband, baby, etc.), I was stressing over the current relationship I’m in, I spoke on the phone to a relative and it was really awkward.

Add one glass of wine, which was an attempt to relax and wham.  The food started calling me and I wanted so much to pick up the phone and order delivery.

I struggled with trying not to order the food for a good three or so hours and couldn’t move past it.  Yet, I didn’t want to blow it. What a confusing place to be – – to want something and not want something so bad at the very same time.

Thank goodness a friend answered my call and helped me work through it because I couldn’t do it myself at that point and would be beating myself up about it all day today if I had placed the order and binged.

It was so hard for me to call my friend.  I’m typically not someone who reaches out when I need help or shares tough moments easily. But, I did make the call and the friend helped me.  I guess I am making some progress after all.

Putting 13,507 Days Behind Me

From what I figure, I’ve spent approximately 13,507 days compulsively overeating.  I’ve never thought of it in terms of days like this, but perhaps that’s because I am in my 17th day of abstinence, so numbers seem very important and relative right now.

I find it so oddly comforting to now meaure my life in minutes and hours, taking it one day at a time rather than in relation to “tomorrow” or “next Monday” which were the times I promised to stop overeating and binging.

Everything is so foreign to me now, so uncomfortable.  I’m a three ring circus of emotion. Happiness and enlightenment coupled with regret for every bad food or life choice that I’ve made, fear of failure, anger at not being able to eat like normal people do, sadness at saying goodbye to my binges and trigger foods.