And while I'm at it, let me Google that for you. No, I'm not going to actually sit here and explain what binge eating is because that's not what my blog is for. However, before I continue with this post, I feel I am obligated to say that I don't work in the medical field, I don't have vast medical knowledge, I like Google, I listen to my doctors and anything I say on my blog relates only to me. If you share similar experiences and you have concerns about your own health, see your physician.
With that out of the way, I want to talk a little today about something I've been struggling a lot with lately. My binge eating. In the beginning, when I started my therapy back in March, I felt like I wasn't struggling with it at all. It might have been because I was losing weight, I was eating healthy, keeping my food journal and everything was going great. Of course, I couldn't even recognize patterns of binge eating then, so it was probably easy for me to say I wasn't struggling with it.
Lately it's been worse and I do notice now, a few months down the road, that much of my binge eating is attached to how I feel. It goes with stress, depression, anxiety and worry. I do fine when I'm happy. I don't use food for when I'm feeling good. However at the first sign of feeling bad, food becomes a way to feel ... not good. It's not good, the way it makes me feel, but temporarily less [whatever it was I was currently feeling]. I'm not sure there is a way to make someone understand who isn't a binge eater, but I'll try here soon.
Last week I had the worst episode in four months since starting therapy and becoming aware of the actual compulsive feeling that drives me to put food into my mouth when I am upset. As I sat here sobbing at my computer, trying to fight this feeling of wanting to eat so I could stop crying and stop feeling so horrible, my husband did his best to console me. I felt badly for my husband, because he couldn't understand, though he did his best to and eventually I just gave in and ate so I could stop feeling so damn depressed.
So this is what happened when I ate. Upon eating, the compulsion to eat stopped after a few minutes and I felt better. Unfortunately, feeling better never lasts because then I feel embarrassed, ashamed and depressed about having to eat to feel better. Oddly (and thankfully) though, this doesn't actually trigger more eating although in the past is may have. I haven't worked out why not and for now I will just count my blessings that it didn't this time.
What I do know, is what triggered this particular episode was mood swings thanks to mother nature - yes, it was that time of the month. Which, hey, thanks to losing weight I now see every month. For the last three months I have had mother nature pay me a visit. Not my favorite part of losing weight, though my therapist likes to tell me it's a good thing, because it means things are returning to normal in my body. On top of that, I do actually suffer from a mood disorder so mood swings are really intense. But, I digress.
Now, my therapist keeps asking me in session what I'm going to do about these times when the compulsions to eat hit me and I still don't know. She doesn't offer me any suggestions so I'm guessing I'm suppose to figure it out myself and that pisses me off but I'll get into my anger and food (and therapy) another day. In the meantime, I will continue to work on it and I will ask for help when I'm ready.
So, I want to give to you an example of what it is like for me to have an intense compulsive binging episode. This isn't actually what happens, I'm putting it into a situation where you can understand it. Imagine having a little voice whispering in your head constantly and it just keeps saying over and over again, "Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, you should eat, eat something, eat, eat, eat, by the way get up and eat, eat, eat, eat, why don't you eat, go eat, eat, eat..." This goes on and on until you finally, to get the voice to shut the hell up, you get up and go eat.
Ok, that's what it's like. There is no actual voice, the voice is the compulsion, a feeling that is there, driving me to go eat that is so pressing that it wont stop until I put food in my mouth, chew and swallow. There is actually a feeling of relief that when I eat, it's gone and I feel free of it. Then starts that cycle of regret, shame, depression... you know, as I explained earlier.
That is binge eating, for me. It comes with obesity, unfortunately and I am fighting it now. I think I have allowed myself to become a victim of my emotions and have been holding myself hostage in my own body of fat. It sucks that I've allowed it to happen so long, that I waited until I was the age that I am, the weight that I am to try to take back my life but here I am doing something about it. At the same time, I realize (thanks to therapy) this started as a child, so I'm not sure that I could have stopped it from happening because I didn't know it was going on.
Anyway, a couple months ago, I didn't think that losing a couple pounds was anything to be proud of and I certainly wouldn't have been patting myself on the back but I think I can now. I'm not too proud of myself, but I think this is a small success. I'm sticking to it. I'm really doing it. I haven't given up. My therapist would probably frown or sigh heavily at me for not being more positive about the changes I've made so far, for me accepting this is a big step.
I am getting there, however, and I have decided that I am not going to let my binging episodes stop me from being a success. I accept that they might still (read as: will) happen until I learn how to control them or prevent them and until then I will pick myself up and keep going. I'm not a failure just because of this bump in the road. I will prevail.
No comments:
Post a Comment