This was going to be a whiny rant about how I am tired of this virus that for 2 weeks has been flitting around my system like a bad boyfriend: taking over my head, then backing off, coming back then almost disappearing again, and just when you think you're over it... wham, here he is again. As Madeline Kahn sings in Blazing Saddles "They're always coming and going and going and coming, and always too soon!!" Blah. Pass the Kleenex, I'm horking up something awful again, and when did the room start tilting in that tantilizing way?
But my bigger anxiety has nothing to do with what I'm coughing up (or not) right now. In fact, the physical ailment has been almost a welcome distraction from the mental anguish I've been going through. For at least four days I have had the gift of being able to slump in bed without guilt and watch endless hours of absolutely non-redeeming, non-educational, melon rotting television. Except I still can't do the Jerry Springer et al stuff. After 10 seconds I have to change the channel before my jaws lock in a permanent grimace of cringeing. The closest I can get is Dr. Phil. It at least has a nice middle class veneer of therapy and good production values. But then he veers off into game show land... Miserable, dumped by cheating hubby and left with the self esteem of a slug? How about a makeover and yes, a --- New Car!!!! Yeesh.
There are other ways in which sometimes I get into a mental tailspin about how well I am healing emotionally, getting back to normal, or not doing so, or not doing so fast enough. But then when was I ever really normal? I have to remember that I am new to this place, a planet where people deal with issues in ways that have nothing to do with food. That was the oddest thing. I won't make a long post even longer by going into details, but last week I was suffering from this virus and I had just finished a gruelling group therapy session and felt utterly hopeless. I felt stuck and like I was never going to be a productive, happy person. It was all bleak. I was so far gone I was almost suicidal. I had a brief image of driving the car in front of a transport on the highway... even though I was carefully stopping and checking traffic at a tricky corner. The impulse quickly passed, and I'm not even sure how strong it was in the first place. I just kept going and drove downtown to buy spices at the health food store. I parked in a garage and sat there and sobbed. What was I going to do?
Most times in the past, if I felt this bad, I would eat something. I overate because it was the one method I knew to comfort myself, to keep myself from feeling that miserable powerlessness. If I could lose myself in sweet treats and crunchy salty textures, then I would be able to avoid facing those horrible depths of dispair. Now, I was in the depths and I thought, should I eat something? What have I got to lose? There's no hope anyway. Then I guess there was a part of my psyche that realized things were not as far gone as I believed. Something in me said, nahhhh, I don't want to eat. I truly did not want to eat. It was quite amazing. I was utterly, completely miserable and did not want to eat.
That small spark started me back up the hill. I called my husband, blubbered, hung up, and then phoned him back and told him I was feeling a bit better. I did my shopping, had a cup of excellent decaf and a piece of fruit that I had packed, sat quietly for a while, and went on with life for a few hours, until the virus mugged me again with a throat that felt like it had been scrubbed out with a bottle brush. Rather Freudian, that virus...
Three things I got from this:
1. When I put down the food I can feel utterly miserable sometimes because what I'm feeling is no longer masked by my security blanket. But it's temporary, it passes. If I start to eat to comfort myself, the misery may feel shallower, but can last in perpetuity and the eating becomes its own problem. Being in the grips of an active eating disorder takes my focus off the underlying issues.
2. True change is possible, that after all the logic is said and argued in my head, it can translate into the feeling level. Even if I never experience that again, I know at least it happened once.
3. I forget what the third thing was. Blame the virus...
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