Hang in There, Baby!

Oh gawd, that awful poster from the seventies! That poor cat! But that's the way I'm feeling. I'm hanging on, and some days, it's like I'm down to my last claw on the branch. It's not white knuckling, not with the food, anyway, which is pretty good, pretty quiet, not calling out to me from the fridge too much.

If there is white knuckling going on, it's to do with my faith in recovery. Things are ok. Nothing is really wrong, things are "fine", but mentally, I wake up feeling like a wall just fell on me. Or more accurately, is about to fall on me if I dare to get out of bed.

I've written (some may say bragged) about how life has been so cool with food "sobriety", and it is, many times. I'm on day 633 since I had a binge, and there are some great moments. But right now, as I write this, my stomach is feeling kind of clenched up, like my jaw, and since I'm not stuffing food down my throat to smother that physical manifestation of anxiety, I can experience that feeling fully. Oh joy. Thankfully, it isn't as intense as a craving, and the discomfort often fades quickly after I recognize it's there.

It's different from a craving, this time I was just feeling and recognizing that discomfort in my gi tract that before probably I would automatically try to smother with food. I guess you could call this a pre-craving, with the craving right around the corner.

I had a craving earlier this morning. I was in a large grocery store early, a time I usually don't go shopping, but I had just dropped my BF's daughter off at school and I needed milk. Honest, I needed milk. I had had a great breakfast, a big helping of my mega chunky oatmeal with nuts and fruit, but it's a cool rainy day, the rest of the day is sort of undefined because I could do this, could do that, could do the other thing, and of course what hit me was the smell of the bread from the in-store bakery... Suddenly I needed bread although I knew full well I had at least a half a loaf in the freezer. The bread I usually buy wasn't there. But boy, did I give the other stuff there a once over, including for the umpteenth time, this olive rosemary sourdough that for me is like crack... One slice, even cut an inch thick from a large round loaf, is never enough.

I needed comfort. I know that. I needed reassurance. Comfort food, in the extreme. My problem is what starts as self-comfort slides into self abuse. I'm not comforting, I'm stuffing.