Gotta Love this *&(^%$#@ Going to Any Lengths Stuff

The holidays were not very good for my food.

Cooked too much, ate too much. Actually, they weren't horrible, perhaps I'm just more aware of how weird my eating gets when given the slightest opportunity. It wasn't until the morning of the 26th when I was eating cake and pan rolls for breakfast with a chaser of jellybeans that I said to myself, "ok, this is nuts."

The book Alcoholics Anonymous calls the disease of alcoholism "cunning, baffling and powerful" , and I think it applies just as well to eating disorders, which in my case is binge eating. In this case, I think my disease uses the lamest most hackneyed excuses to get me to eat, like:

I'll have just one, and stop. (Since when have you been able to do that?)
I have to taste it to see if it needs more...something. (But why do you have to taste it 13 times?)
They'll be upset if I don't have one. (Will they even notice, and if they do, what does that say about them?)
It's not what I usually eat but they haven't got what I usually eat... (Heaven forbid you die of starvation before the next meal)

Showing up

Some days, like Woody Allen said (I think) 80% of success is just showing up. So, I'm here. I'm tired because I stayed up too late finishing off a pair of socks I was knitting, after staying late at the pub with some of my choirwhore pals. Ah, only days ago I was staying up too late finishing off a box of chocolates. Amazing the difference a few days of working the program can make: I forget how desperate I was, how I was lost in the grip of getting, eating, and getting more food. As can I forget, when I'm in the food, what it was like to be well.

Actually, that's not quite true. It's been said that being in OA really ruins a good binge, and they're right. When I have a binge, I keep seeing how crappy it really is, and after a day or two, really crave returning to sanity, so I get my ass to a meeting, or call someone, to get me out of the spiral. The real trick is not getting into that spiral. That's why I'm here. I'm really seeing these days how not dealing with my emotions leads me straight back into the food.

In one of the ironies of life, I have to go now to deliver 5 boxes of food and over two hundred dollars in cash that we collected for the local food bank at our choir friends and family event. That's the thing about food, it's not like alcohol. Unlike a recovering alcoholic whose mantra is No Matter What, Don't Drink, I don't have that option with food, that would be anorexic. Food is a basic part of life, so I need to learn how to deal with that part of living.

Bummer, dude. But it is what it is. I just have to keep believing that there is a point for my existence to give me strength to keep going.

Today's Gratitudes

I know it sounds pollyanna, but it does help me feel better. So here goes, 20 of the suckers, done in pure stream of consciousness mode:

1. Fuzz
2. warm blankets
3. sunshine
4. functioning car
5. pumpkin color walls
6. comfy kitchen chairs
7. good lunch with creative friend
8. my running group that gets me out even when cold
9. my oa group that helps me pick up and go on
10. skating buddy
11. dinner for tonight already cooked
12. good friend back from Mexico
13. her cleaning lady
14. a home mainly paid for
15. my stained glass supplies turning up
16. tolerant friends and family
17. still hangin on
18. a good therapist I've had now for over 5 years (a record)
19. crazy cats
20. a great neighbour and BF and her hubby and kid who keep her sane even if she doesn't think so...
    

Insidious Oblivion

Ok, it's painfully obvious that I will do many things to avoid writing about my feelings. This morning, for example, I've spent an hour on the computer tinkering with settings, browsing, reading and replying to e-mail and facebook posts, in short, anything but actually doing the kind of writing that will keep me away from the food. I was brought up short when, on the way back to the table from the loo I had a sudden urge to shave a sliver off of last night's tourtiere.

Purely for research purposes mind you, as I want to make some as christmas gifts, and had purchased a pricey boutique bakery version to study their technique (which besides the addition of a few nice spices seems to boil down to butter, butter everywhere...) Never mind the fact I had had plenty of opportunity to sample it as we had nice size slices for dinner last night. But maybe it would reveal some more secrets cold.... nope. No secrets, just guilt. But that's my disease, coming up with the most shameless hackneyed excuse for eating and then when I follow through on it, it's right there offering a heapin' helpin' o' shame.

But I'm not going to beat myself up over it. It wasn't a binge, it was a sliver. A small slip. I've got to avoid being so black and white in my thinking as in my food. Moderation. Gentleness. Tolerance. For myself and others. So... onward.

I'm feeling holiday pressure. In laws coming over on The Big Day. Eek eek EEEEEK. The last time that happened, which was jeez, over a decade ago, I panicked and cooked enough for at least 12 when there were actually only 5 of us. So this year, scaling down. I've even lucked into having my friend Carole's cleaning lady coming to clean two days before. But the house is a half painted, half renoed mess, but jeez it's so much nicer than it was. I'm paralysed trying to figure out what I should attack next, the crappy drywall in the bathroom, filling nail holes in the kitchen, trying to smooth out the kitchen ceiling... paint the stairs to cover the bare plywood, paint the front foyer and closet, the bathroom, the kitchen???? Aughhhhhhh! I went into a complete spin last week over this, went to bed, covered my head, and ate a ton. A bad binge. I'm just so lucky I had promised my buddy M a drive to the OA meeting that morning. It got me out of it.

So let's look at priorities:

1. Has to be being abstinent. Work my programme.
   
2. The house needs to be reasonably clean. Yay cleaning lady!
   
3. Work on my physical fitness this week, including running group, skating tomorrow and a trip to the gym on Friday.
   
4. I'd like to paint in the kitchen, maybe get the cupboards and ceiling painted for once. The rest can follow later
5. Put a tree up. No design questions, just put every freakin' ornament we own on the poor thing until it threatens to fall over.
   
6. Make some tourtiere to give friends as gifts.
7. Make a sensible Christmas meal, not the feast to end all feasts.
8. Un-stress. Enjoy the day. Cook the damn turkey the day before.

Ok, time to go work on more programme stuff. Do my daily readings, maybe look at some step work. Then lunch, and some spackle.

An Alien Amongst You

One of the things one of my OA mentors has suggested is to reread twice daily pages 30 & 31 of the book Alcoholics Anonymous (known in our rooms simply as the "Big Book", a reference to its large bible-like size when originally published over 80 years ago). In my book, I've crossed out the references to alcohol and substituted words referring to food and compulsive overeating. Basically, the purpose of the passage is to make us realize that for us compulsive eaters, for whatever reason, be it nature or nurture or both (after years of puzzling, searching and asking professionals and getting conflicting answers I finally realize it may not really matter what the root cause is) we are somehow made differently from other people and it makes us react to food in a dysfunctional manner. I've begun to form a disease model around this tendency.

I thought I had grasped that. I thought my problem was I felt so hopeless I thought I might as well eat. But, and I've just made this connection, my original problem this last fall was complacency, as after 3+ months of a good fall where I had been doing the morning routine and life was going ok, I stopped the routine, and fell into a trap of my own construction. Or, to put it in a less self-judgmental manner, I fell into a trap of the disease's construction. Someone I quite respect who even so, half the time drives me nuts once said that her disease's most dangerous symptom is it makes her forget that she has this disease.

The forgetting makes me stop doing the things that keep me sane. I guess my disease model is of a mental disease with physical symptoms --- the compulsive bingeing.

Here's a bit of that passage as adapted for my purposes (my changed bits in italics):

"Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real food addicts. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from others. Therefore, it is not surprising that our struggles with food
have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could eat like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy moderate eating is the great obsession of every abnormal eater. The persistance of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were compulsive overeaters. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

We compulsive overeaters are men and women who have lost the ability to control our eating. We know that no real food addict ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals --- usually brief ---- were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a single soul that compulsive eaters of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, not better.

We are like those who have lost their legs; they never grow good ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make compulsive eaters of our kind like other people. We have tried every imaginable remedy. In some instances there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse. Physicians who are familiar with eating disorders agree there is no such thing as making a normal eater out of a compulsive eater. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet.

Despite all we can say, many who have eating disorders are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self-deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore non-addicted. If anyone who is showing ability to control his eating can do the right-about-face and eat like the normal person, our hats are off to them. Heaven knows, we have tried hard enough and long enough to eat like other people!

Yup, I recognize the demoralization part. Maybe, just maybe, this hopelessness and worthlessness I feel hanging on to me, like a Dickensian wraith, is a disease symptom itself. I have to put that aside and believe the others that value me... I'm going to make a list to make myself remember that:

Fuzz
my studio mate who's invited me out for lunch today
people who invite me to sing with them
BF who wants us to spend xmas dinner with them
Fuzz's folks who don't understand us but want us to have dinner with them
Mary
friends in OA
other friends

ok ok, I'm worthwhile, I get it... ah, that I really believed it. Perhaps this requires the "act as if" stuff they talk about in the rooms, that if I pretend I do enough I will actually start believing it. OK ok, for today, I will act as if my life has a point.

Coming Clean: REALLY Struggling with the Food

I'm having troubles with the food. Big surprise, I'm a compulsive overeater. It just seemed to come to a head in the last couple of weeks. This was after nearly 90 days of sanity after attending a retreat in the fall where I latched on to a morning routine to get my feelings on paper. I was feeling so good, I stopped the routine. Possibly, I fell into complacency, subconsicously believing, "well, I'm fine now...."

So I slipped. And slipped hard, with 4 no-shit episodes of binge eating over the last month, precipitated by a persistant virus/cold that really made my emotions do a nose dive. Life seemed pointless some days. As of today, I'm in my 3rd day "clean". It doesn't feel particularly hard right now, but it can turn on a dime from sane to "fuck it, I'm shit, there is no hope, and I'm going to what I want to do, which is eat". One night I was in physical pain, I had stuffed so much food down my throat. Thankfully I did not feel compelled to throw up, because I feel that bulimia is another eating disorder even more serious than bingeing.

It always starts with the emotions for me. I don't think that the base problem is food in itself. The food, bad as it is, is "merely" a symptom. That's a pretty bad symptom. So the feelings must feel pretty big. Luckily, I've been staying in close touch with a couple of women who between them must have 40 years of experience in Overeaters Anonymous. And they've been helping me through this by encouraging me to stay in contact with them and work the OA programme.

But when I am feeling vulnerable, I hate writing. So, here I am, because it seems easier to blog than write. Of course, when blogging, I wonder about a tendency to gloss things over. Well, maybe, but it's better than nothing. I can always tell myself that not many people read this anyway...

I hate running! No, I love running! No, I hate running, no wait, I love running....oh pooh on it...

Just one of the stories of my summer. I have this love-hate relationship with running. And last week I kind of hit a real bottom (like falling down the old rabbit hole) and tearfully told my coach I was quitting. He sort of talked me out of it, well, he just humoured me. I'm sure he's done it many times, but of course, I thought my misery was special. I really did do a number on myself, it was like I was 300 pounds again. It happens from time to time, I go back to that very dark place. I'll have a bad day, or a string of them, and suddenly I'm in that place where I'm a big lumpy failure.

Now, in my running group, I can safely say I am one of the slowest. We do these interval trials on a small route fairly regularly, and I'm always being passed by these younger, fitter, genetically different atheletes. And then there was the night when we did a 5 k to see how fast we could do it. I was dead last and not having fun AT ALL. It was hot and I wondered why the hell I was putting myself up for this misery. My head was throbbing and my chest couldn't get enough air.

All that was fine and good, I was within reason to be frustrated. What happened next was where maybe I crossed some sort of mental line into crazy. Emotionally, things got very, very dark. I was a loser. I couldn't do this. I quit. Give up, uncle. This life is for others, not losers like me. After the run was over, I walked to a quiet area of the park and cried for a long time, until I figured out I had marooned Fuzz at the parking lot without the car key.

I was in a bleak mood for the rest of the night. The miracle was I didn't eat over it. I had a long e-mail conversation with my coach about it, and I'm still processing it. I'm not feeling nearly so bad now, I'm back to regular running, but the whole event has been interesting as a demonstration of where my brain can go, possibly when I'm not careful about my mental hygiene. It's likely no coincidence that this happened while both my sponsor and my therapist were out of town, and I was only hitting one meeting a week due to holidays and home reno.

Living with the Fear

I was finished running last night, on the way home with Fuzz and looking forward to having a dinner of excellent leftover curry, garlic broccoli and basmati rice. But I was in a funk. Why? Well, it was my non-dessert night. A while back, I decided I really did not need dessert (usually an ounce of 85% chocolate) every night, and since I'd like to be about five pounds lighter, Itried doing it just every second night. I realized I was bummed out about that. And then I thought, "How pitiful is that? Is my life so meaningless, that the highlight of my day is dessert?!" Turns out that was the least of my problems. Whether it's allergies or a cold, I spent all evening sneezing and going through wads of Kleenex. Not eating dessert was easy. Walking and talking, feeding the cats without banging into things quickly became less so. I went to bed early, comforted by reading about David Sedaris' boil.

I don't know why I'm surprised at my chocolate funk. I'm a compulsive overeater! Oh duh, that again. Someone has said that addiction (and I include food addiction in this) is the only disease whose primary symptom may be forgetting that you have the disease. Just look at my history: Food, at many, many times of my life, has been my primary occupation: getting it, making it, eating it, getting more, over and over, ad nauseum. It has only been the last five years, since being in Overeaters Anonymous and working damn hard in therapy and in support groups that I have been able to craft much of a life outside the food. So yeah, it figures that I'm bummed I'm not having dessert. As many times as I tell myself, this isn't my last supper, I will eat again, on some level I still don't believe it. I'm actually mildly surprised that for two weeks I've been able to survive every second day without it. Interestingly, there was a time I wasn't eating sweet stuff much at all, so how did chocolate become a daily thing again anyway? I think it was probably with the publication of those studies saying that extra dark chocolate might be good for you. But as a friend pointed out, if you're doing something daily, it goes from being a treat to being a lifestyle.

I've written here about my issues with the midnight nibblies. I think it becomes harder to escape the food in the evening when I'm supposed to be relaxing. During the day there's work, chores, a schedule. At night is when the greeblies come out to dance on my brain. I've been aware for sometime that I have this baseline level of unfocused fear that starts murmuring at the back of my consciousness even before I wake up. I think that has something to do with it. I talked about it to my therapist tomorrow and we discussed just being aware of it. I guess that's the first step, and therefore the first of the 12 steps could be easily applied to it: I admitted I was powerless over it and it's making my life unmanageable, or in other words, the fear makes me bummed out I'm not going to have dessert. Hm. More shall be revealed, I'm sure... My sponsor's back and there's gonna be writing...

It's Official: I'm a Geezer

This doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I turned 47 a couple of weeks ago.

No, what happened is, I bought a Wii a couple of months ago, and it's been fine. Cute, fun. But, not all that I had hoped. It doesn't really require much physical prowess to become a Wii bowling or tennis expert, and even the cow racing lost it's allure after a couple of weeks. I suppose I could buy some better games for it, but I've got a new interest: golf. Yes, that's right. Golf. The game of a million geezers. I know, I know, and Tiger Woods, but face it, it's like riding a Harley. It's mainly played by geezers.

I've just played a little, but now I want my own set of clubs. And noticed they had a women's set at Costco for about what I paid for the Wii. I then had the idea that selling the Wii to my neighbour would pay for the clubs.

Why does golf appeal to me more than the Wii? Well, so far, I'm finding it more fun. And actually better exercise. Outdoors. Even if it is on such neurotically groomed grass. Who can believe that stuff is actually real? It should be an offense to make grass that behaves like astroturf, Still, being outdoors for 3 hours with my friends and then dinner beats the experience on the couch hands down.

I never thought I would play golf. Just one of those new discoveries.

Life is Pretty Good

Sorry I haven't been around much lately, but life has been pretty good. And I've been busy. Maybe a little too busy? Certainly I haven't had much time for introspection, but I still seem to have time to be a couch potato. This morning I'm only here is because I couldn't sleep. So, I've done laundry and had breakfast, done the e-mail, and so... it's either this or go to work. And I don't want to do that for another hour.

Interesting things I've discovered:

Doing things like planting stuff and cleaning up can actually make me feel better.

Sweating will not kill me.

It's possible to get through a night without chocolate.

I need to schedule regular appointments to talk to people in program about program. Not about golf or travel...

I might actually like golf. A brand new discovery. Mind you, at this point I haven't actually played a round, only been on the driving range.

Sometimes the easier way is ok. Not everything has to be done from scratch.

Just because I'm eating healthier, it doesn't mean meals can't sometimes be fairly quick and simple.

Every meal is not my Last Supper.

Lying on the deck with your feet in a still too-cool pool is almost as good as being in the pool.

It's never too late to go back to bed. Which is where I'm going right now.

Coming out the Other Side

This has been an emotionally rocky month for me. I've really had this persistent malaise for most of may and it's been tough. But today, the only day that matters, I'm doing ok. Despite the fact it's a holiday Monday here in Canada (Victoria Day), I got up at the usual time and phoned my food buddy. We rarely talk about anything earthshaking, just how's your food, but it's one of those regular aspects of my OA program that I've come to rely on. It just keeps me closer to good habits, and keeps me fairly honest about my food. Nothing earth shattering, just a new, healthier habit that helps with my sanity.

Amazingly, although I've felt like utter crap some days, I haven't binged over it and I've got almost 2 months with no binge. So that's great. But if I'm going to log some serious sanity time with the food, I need to do some more footwork. Today, my mood is such that it seems possible. I've had a great week, and I think it has everything to do with the healthy relationships I've formed with the people I've met at OA. I went on my first ever organized hike with a group because of my sponsor yesterday. 10 km, which at times felt like it was 10 k straight up and then 10 k down... my toes is sore today, but we did it! Which reminds me.... I've got to phone an OA buddy. My sponsor and this woman helped me move 3 cubic yards of topsoil I had delivered this week and we're going to repeat the favour for another OA friend who's been ill and unable to work in her garden.

Ok, I've got to go, but I just wanted to check in. Later today I'll post some more. I need to do some writing about long term abstinence. I think it's needed... Today, I've got some access to joy in my heart. What a gift.

This Too, However Weird, Will Pass

I need one of those countdown keychains, like the ones I saw in a Greenwich Village tchotche shop which count down the days until we are finally rid of Dubya, except I could use mine to predict when whatever snit I'm laboring under will end. Like Whateverthehellthatwas I had for the last 2 weeks: I thought I was depressed, but then I started noticing definite physical symptoms: my asthma ticked up, I was light headed and my stomach was dipsydo-ing and when I exercised I felt like I had concrete blocks tied to my shoes. Even worse, I couldn't run for long before having to find a bathroom! Embarrassing and inconvenient. Finally I just took a couple days off from the running and didn't do much except read novels. Whatever it was would just have to pass.

But I still wondered if all the symptoms were psychological in origin. Then today, BFF, my travelmate for the NYC trip two weeks ago phoned and said, "I don't know what's wrong with me, I'm just exhausted and my throat is kinda sore and I keep thinking I should be doing stuff, but everything just seems so hard right now!" DING DING DING! Ha! It's not me, it's a virus!

This week is much better, almost night versus day better. Happier, more active, running again, food is very good. Hopefully I can keep more of a long-term perspective the next time something like this happens.

Suddenly, Light at the End of the Tunnel

Well, it took almost another week, but I think I'm finally out of my funk. I started coming up for air on Friday, yesterday was a normal good day, and today I feel pretty good!

It seemed to be touch and go there for a while. The food really started calling loudly. I think it was late Thursday night and I felt like I was just a hair's breadth away from a binge. There was a bagel, the last one of the dozen I lugged back from NYC, and it was calling, no actually, it was bellowing my name. I tried to remember why it is I don't binge anymore, and was coming up with nothing. Logic had left town. My prehensile Lizard Brain was completely in control. Somehow, out of the fog I managed to remember how bad I would feel the next morning. But I really wanted that bagel. But then I thought, ya know, if you pray, really give it over to God, the obsession will be lifted. So, I said a very quick prayer. I'm not sure it even had words. It was more like a thought of "OK, God, it's in your court. Take it!" And suddenly it was almost as if I had swallowed the obsession. It was gone that quickly. Lifted, bada boom bada bing! I felt great. I fixed a cup of decaf chocolate spice chai (my new favorite) and then went to bed.

I have had that miracle happen before, but not often in my five plus years working an Overeaters Anonymous program. Maybe ten times at the most. More often my food choices are more quotidian, not as strong or alarming, ie, will I have an extra piece of potato, or should I have pizza this week, and should I have another piece, that sort of thing. But it's those really strong urges to binge where I really feel like I am being kneecapped by my disease, actually it's more like being forced to my knees, because that's the position I need to get out of it.

After all, five years ago it was my inability to go more than 3 days without a good binge that forced me to seriously attempt OA for a second time after a few meetings that I had half-heartedly attempted. That and my therapist throwing up her hands, metaphorically. I think it was her desperation that really threw me for a loop. I was used to my own, but here was a gutsy smart woman who I had worked with for two years and really respected, telling me that beyond residential treatment, she didn't know what else to do.

Anyway, I can see now that Thursday night I intuitively performed the first three steps of the 12 step programme:

1)I realized that I was powerless over my craving, it was driving me nuts, aka my life is unmanageable.

2) I understood that the only hope of not throwing that bagel in the nuker and digging out the butter was to appeal to some power outside of my normal field of reference. In this case I called on God, whatever God is (still have no idea, not sure it's even important to be splitting hairs at this point - whatever it is, it's worked better than my own best efforts in the past. Three university degrees hadn't done it, I had regained gained over fifty pounds with my last cum laude.

3) I made a decision to say ask God to take my obsession.

And it was immediately gone. Before I even said anything resembling a formal prayer or supplication, I stopped salivating. A light went on, there would be no bingeing tonight. It was if my freezer had suddenly been transported to Outer Mongolia.

I still don't know exactly what happened, and will it happen next time? I don't know. I can't speak to the future, and I shouldn't. Living in the future and the past just makes me miserable anyway. So, here I am. Alive, and awed, and ready to fight another day. Something which has been reinforced is the knowledge that I need to regularly re-commit to the first three steps of the programme, they are the very basis of my recovery.

I still feel that pull back to old habits, sometimes the change feels tentative even after all these years. I guess my neural pathways may take longer to change. Or as a doctor specializing in addiction told me, he believes that the old ones never leave. They may weaken, but they are still there, dormant, waiting.

Brr. Sounds pessimistic, doesn't it? Maybe, maybe not. Vigilance may be the price I pay for liberty.

Painful Honesty Ain't

Awww, do I have to? Ugh, this is gonna hurt!

Actually, I'm not sure it's going to hurt. In fact, I'm fairly sure it's not. But that is my first impulse, where my thinking goes when my switch flips and thinking becomes painful. I've spent the last 4 days feeling really bad. It happens sometimes when I return from a trip, particularly one to NYC where I just get completely overstimulated and turned on by all the art and the riches of what is available to a casual visitor. So, my brain flips out and says, "Overload overload! Shut down, shut down, NOW!"

So I did. Spent a lot of time trying to sleep. Just completely overwhelmed. How was my food... ehhhh.... not bad... I wasn't getting much exercise but I ate as if I was, so more than I needed, but I didn't binge. So I guess I should be grateful for that. I ate fairly normally. Time was, I couldn't go more than 3 days without a binge. All I did this time was have my usual evening dessert without going to the gym that day. I guess I'll survive... Wow. I really do sound sad. Ok, times like this I need to be grateful that even if my food didn't feel overly "clean". I hate that term. It attempts to polarize food, and food is impossible to completely catagorize into clean or "unclean". That kind of thinking is too much like an anorexic obsession, (ie cheese is evil, lettuce is good) and it doesn't work.

Luckily, there were a few things that got me out of bed. My choir. A board meeting. My running group (all 2 or three of us, doesn't matter, got me going). And Fuzz finally returned from his business trip, so that helped. It wasn't just me and the cats. So, it's been tough, but it's improving. It shows me that I need structure to get me out of these funks. That is where my job as an artist hasn't been particularly helpful. Nobody yells at me if I don't show up at the studio. I just don't produce. And a great deal of shame wells up in my breast. Actually, I think it wells up in my stomach, and then I eat to soothe.

AGAIN, I find myself having difficulty with night time eating. You may remember that I had declared a moratorium from eating besides 2 designated snacks after dinner. It was successful, and then, I guess I became complacent. Decided that it was ok, I could just nibble on healthy stuff. Carrots, cucumber. And again the obsession has returned, and more food has been creeping in: a little hummus, some leftover veggie curry, and cheese.. When it starts looking like another meal, not just a snack, I think, hmm... that's not looking too good.

I think I have a fear of not being able to eat again this day. Every meal feels like the Last Supper, and I guess then every snack feels like The Last Snack. It seems to be a fear of not getting enough. Enough. I think that is a metaphor for the rest of my non-food life. Somewhere, sometime, I didn't get enough. And it got translated into food. I was actually happier when I wasn't eating in the evening. After some initial discomfort, and fear, the obsession faded, and I did something else. So maybe I need to recommit to that.

As for today, as they constantly remind us, that is what we have, today. I have today. And since it is Sunday, it stretches out in front of me, full of promise, and menace. What is it about my disease that a stretch of unstructured time feels bad? I look forward to it, but I hate it. I think it has something to do with the time filling up with "shoulds". I should do this, I should be doing that, I should be stenciling the driveway. And then it looks impossible. So much housework, yardwork, paperwork, it all seems ovewhelming. And then I shut down.

It is only when I can focus down a bit, and actually attempt the things that will make me feel better, do I feel capable of functioning. Housework, for instance. It overwhelms me, but if I take just a bit of it---putting away a little laundry, or just sweeping up the worst of the crud on the kitchen floor, I feel better. So I can take it on. And inevitably, I do a little more than I thought I could accomplish. And I do feel better.

Only by taking my day down to more manageable bites, do I seem able to get through it. And like everything in my life, when my day seems more manageable, so does my food.

Ugh. Thunk. Get up again. Ugh. Thunk. Keep going. I think it gets better. If I'm honest and look at my past 5 years working the OA program in my imperfect yet very human way, I do see that things have improved greatly. 5 years ago, obese and miserable. Now, not obese and usually not miserable, but it takes work.

Fatgrrl's Back and There's Gonna Be Laundry

Back from a long weekend in NYC with BFF! What a great weekend! Despite fears of Papal traffic issues--- I didn't know that the Pope was visiting that same weekend, or I might have made reservations for a different weekend --- we had no issues with the dreaded "frozen zones" and enjoyed lovely weather for our visit to stores (oh so many more than we had planned), museums (The Met, the Morgan and the Neue Galerie) Central Park and a stroll over the Brooklyn bridge, avoiding being whacked by telephoto-wielding tourists and Italian MTV hacks for a pilgrimage to my favorite restaurant: Grimaldi's. Yes, deafening, no reservations, no plastic, waiters that act like they work for the Russian mob, having to sit half an inch from the table next to you, that Grimaldi's. I guess there's no better proof that I'm still obsessed with food if I still do all that for the perfect slice.

Travelling and food is always a challenge. You can't get what you usually eat, so you improvise, with mixed results. We did have a kitchenette in our hotel room this trip which was worth it because we could make our own toast and coffee in the mornings and keep fruit, carrots and cheese, which at least one of our meals consisted mainly of, supplemented by local bagels. But when we did eat out, we didn't always make the best choices, not so much by ordering the wrong stuff, after all we actually ate at Whole Foods--- twice! But even though we were good about getting our veggies, I think we still had some portion inflation trouble. Nothing huge, but when my eating gremlin gets a little extra food, it just wants the party to keep going.

So, now I'm home, and I have to get some groceries because there's not much in the fruit and veg department in the house. Not to mention skim milk. I've had an abstinent lunch, a bagel, some cheese and turnip sticks and a couple of Tb of roasted sunflower seeds. But my demon wants more. It's a challenge, and Fuzz is taking off himself for a few days for a conference, so I'll be alone with my demon. Well, I don't have to be. In fact, the next few days are fairly busy in the evenings, with my running group, an OA meeting, choir rehearsal, more running, and a board meeting. So, my job is to get enough vegetables for nutritious meals, and deal with life rather than eating over it.

Because the food is often just a tool of obliteration. It's my method of self-soothing, or smothering my fear and anxiety. One thing I have to do is be vigilant about this technique which can so easily go awry. One simple technique is to replace the old old habit of bedtime eating with a hot beverage before bed. I've found a big cup of decaf chai gives me a comforting satiety but is not eating as such. And because it's not eating, it doesn't quite feel as satisfying, but it's better for me, and by continuing the habit, it becomes more permanent and replaces the less safe behaviour.

Grateful Despite Myself

I have a friend in Overeaters Anonymous who writes a fairly regular (maybe daily) gratitude list. It helps with complacency and maybe I should give it a try today. Let's try 5 things, just random stuff off the top of my head:

I'm grateful that Fuzz is taking care of himself enough to decide he needed a day off from work. The poor guy is upstairs in bed, he's exhausted.
I'm grateful for the woodpecker at the birdfeeder.
I'm grateful that rather than going to the gym last night for an hour and a half, I gave my sore muscles a break and spent the evening at home making my environment a happier place to be in: cleaning the butcher block of all the stray mail and detritus that gathers there, sorting out some papers, testing out paint samples for the kitchen, putting away shoes, just some tidying. It felt good.
I'm grateful for my studio downtown where I can do my messy work and I don't have to worry much about what I splatter or spill or stink up.
I'm grateful for my studio mate, J. She's very easy to get along with. My biggest worry with her is I've taken over too much of the space, but she doesn't seem to mind.
I'm also grateful that all the studios in our building are now occupied, hopefully keeping the landlord content and unlikely to kick us out for renovation anytime soon.
I'm grateful that I'm finally getting the knack of the Corel Painter program. I started using the Perspective tool yesterday. Handy!

Cool. That's six. Good enough Aha, there goes my Perfectionista: " Hmph! If you were really grateful, you'd do ten!" Oh, shut up.

I'm wondering what I am doing today that is fun? Well, going to the studio could be fun. But not that fun. Perspective is not fun, but it is satisfying when I can look at my finished paintings and enjoy that the perspective of the background works rather than detracts from the other stuff I find more important. Speaking of which, I think I'm going to work on that perspective now. Wow, I'm excited about perspective. Who knew?!

I Only Look Fixed

Wow, what a sucky morning. I did not didnotdidnot want to get up. At nine I turned on the bedside radio to try to get me into a state where I did. By ten I did rise, probably because I wanted my wonderful morning oatmeal. God, I love my oatmeal. I use steel cut oats, it makes all the difference in the world. No mush, more a consistency of brown rice, but better because it also has crunchy slivered almonds, raisins, dried cranberries, a bit of cinnamon and cloves and a good dose of ground cardamom. Yummmo. I've eaten it almost every day now for over two years, it's that good. I've even taken it camping and dried on road trips to cook up in a hotel room microwave... hmmm... note to self, maybe want to take it on my trip to NYC this week...

Anyway, food will get me out of bed where other things won't. I only look like I'm not a compulsive overater, but I still get crazy about food. And that tells me that I've still got this disease. And lately, I've been waking up miserable, but I can't quite put my finger on why I'm feeling so miserable. I've had a lot of "shoulds" floating through my brain. It may not be the things I'm "shoulding" myself about that are making me miserable, I think it's the "shoulding" that is making me miserable. Or in other words, it's those feelings of being overwhelmed, shame at being the imperfect being that I am, not the jobs themselves making me feel bad.

So I wake up with that damn shame. Well, I guess this is A JOB FOR CAPTAIN STEPWORK! (cue trumpet fanfare). Rats, no trumpets. Just a response of "oh, ugh, that..." Yup, seems like the only hope for cure from misery is to pick at that scab. No, it's worse than picking, it's all out surgery I'm performing on my psyche when I do stepwork. That's why I loooooove it so. But my only alternative is more misery. So, it looks like I really don't have a choice... but I do:

In step 1 I admit that I am powerless over food. Almost forty years of the fruitless diet & binge cycle finally convinced me of that. In steps 2 and 3 I decided to try the idea that there was a power outside my consciousness that might be able to help me and chose to reach out for it. Lo and behold, it actually started to work. I still am not able to pinpoint the exact moment it started, I just remember a point in early recovery where it dawned that if I could tap into this group of people who seemed to be having success and whatever power keeps the sun coming up in the morning (despite what seem like our best efforts to prevent that) it might work better than what I'd been doing to myself for so many years.

In "working the steps" I'm trying to bring this approach to the mental undertow that threatens to suck me under, for the main reason that I know that all turmoil in my head takes me back to the food. After five years in OA, I still don't think that working the steps is magic, or quick cure from God. I'm still enough of an agnostic to think that stepwork may just be really a handy system for examining what is driving me nuts: fluffing up my mental compost pile so it stops driving me so nutty with its stink, much as I do when I talk to my therapist weekly. It's sort of DIY talk therapy but it's writing.

Then there is step 5 when you share it. Just like I share my thoughts with my shrink. She helps me examine the thoughts, turn them over, fact check, look at how they fit with my present reality, or maybe where I was when they were appropriate if they don't seem to fit my life today. Which is where I think a lot of my crazy thoughts originated: in my crazy past with my workaholic, alcoholic, frightened family.

So, enough explaining, maybe look at this shame and actually work on it a bit. You know, I'm going to do that offline, because I can just do stream of consciousness writing, and then share what parts I'm comfortable sharing here, or with my sponsor, therapist, or whomever. Interestingly, I've been having some issues with my sponsor lately (she is human, and so am I), which I have not shared with her. I've been talking to my therapist about them, and I may eventually share them with my sponsor too, but that comes later. First I have to write. Dammit! Alright, alright, I'm going...

Postscript: I've done less than a page of writing, and already I'm feeling better. A couple of things have come up: I'm starting to see how I learned powerlessness growing up, and how I'm carrying that into my adult life in my day to day actions (feeling like I have to do it all, NOW and perfectly) and in being very passive, avoiding asking for what I need. I'd write more but I'm meeting with said sponsor for a nosh and need to get dressed and pack my lunch. This is really interesting to see working, for what I'm seeing is some evidence that I can change. And that's very hopeful. TTYS.

My Hungry Ghost

I had a devil of a time getting my butt out of bed this morning. It could be an easy day, I have absolutely nothing scheduled. But when I have an unscheduled day, it seems to be hijacked by my "shoulds" and I feel like crap. I finally struggled to life while half listening (& half snoozing) to a radio interview with the doctor and writer Gabor Mate. He works with addicts in Vancouver, and they also interviewed residents and other staff at a residential hotel for addicts and street people. I woke up when I heard the phrase "step work" and it piqued my attention, because I thought, "Hm, I feel like crap, I should be doing step work." More shoulds but maybe it's true.

I listened to Dr. Mate talk about his idea that the addict is trying to self soothe. I know that feeling, the one that thinks, if I can just eat this, buy this, get this, do this I will feel better. And it works. For about 2 seconds. And then it starts over again. He uses the Bhuddist concept (again with those Bhuddists!) of the hungry ghost that can never be sated. As a compulsive eater, I can certainly identify with that. Dr. Mate also talked about the complicated trail of genetics and early experience that sets us up to be addicts (of substances or of behaviours), that brain scans show that our brains have been definitely altered, and maybe that alteration was not due to the addiction, but actually caused the addiction. I don't know if it has been done, but it would be interesting to see any study of random images to see if it were possible to predict who would become an addict.

His book is called "In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts" and I plan to pick one up. Maybe I should do it today. It might inspire me. I need something, I feel like a total lump. Ok, get dressed, get out into the rain, pick up a couple of things, and get into the studio. I'll feel better then. I hope. I'm trying to self soothe, but it's tough.

These Good Times are Hard on Me

I went to bed last night and my brain was just spinning. Monkey mind, a 12-step friend calls it, although I think she got the term from Bhuddists trying to calm their minds in meditation. So, I did my version of meditation. I silently repeated the Serenity Prayer over and over until I went to sleep, which felt like an hour, but I doubt it was more than fifteen minutes. I had had a great couple of days --- I drove to Toronto to meet up with Fuzz where he was at a conference. We had a great thali at our favorite Indian dive (decor by MacDonalds, food by Delhi) and then a concert by the Finnish acapella group Rajaton --- wow! We stayed at Fuzz's hotel overnight and when he returned to his meetings, I continued the Scandinavian theme and took off for Ikea and spent a great morning buying baskets, rugs and hooks and a big new hutch for our kitchen. Then I drove home at breakneck speed for our choir rehearsal which went really well (unlike last week --- that was the topic of the last post) and I felt good.

Of course, travelling I ate a little too much and I had a really rich brownie at the social after the rehearsal. The sad thing was I was talking with another painter at the same time so I didn't even taste the brownie. I really regretted that. It was a good brownie but I just inhaled it.

I think there was a fair bit of subconscious anxiety going on though. And it made me wonder what was going on, as it seems to fuel my compulsion to overeat. I went to bed although I wasn't very sleepy, but it was self defense; I knew that staying up later would be dangerous, food wise. Which explains a bit of the monkey mind.

For some reason what floated into my mind when preparing for bed was an image from over a quarter century in the past: I was a junior in high school and had a part in a play, and I remember buying a box of crackers and eating a lot of them, in secret. It was a very happy time (I loved acting) but I know there was a lot of social anxiety on my part as most of the other actors were older than me and I really felt the odd girl out. It seems like performance, acting, or singing, activities which I love, also raises big worries ... the old Sally Field thing: "You love me, you really love me!!!" But there's also the worry that maybe people are looking at me, silently mocking me, or even worse, thinking me too proud and despising me for it. In other words, I'm being uppity and I'm going to get my comeuppance.

Hm. That's interesting. I think that can explain that tendency to overeat when things are going well. At least on the surface, they are going well, but underneath, like a cold stream flowing through my veins (or at least my digestive tract) is that anxiety. I'm not sure what, if anything I can do about that beyond doing what my therapist (and a meditation teacher I once had) suggests, but just notice it. Honour that I have that feeling. And then let it go. It will return, I'm sure, but I think the awareness of it alone robs it of some of the power to control me.

Skinless

I felt very raw yesterday, as if I had no skin, and every activity felt like I was getting a pin stuck into me. The day didn't go all that well initially, involving some plumbing problems that ended with water coming through the light fixtures on the floor below. Shit happens, and plumbing follows. At least the flood was clean water. As a result, my plans for the afternoon did go pretty much awry, but at least I got an hour and a half in the studio. Then there was choir practice, and I felt raw again, because there were issues that as a board member I got stuck in the middle of. Or rather, perhaps I stuck myself in the middle. There are many board members, but I think I made it my responsibility to deal with some issues, and then I felt overtaxed.

Oh well, at least I got reimbursed for some expenditures I had made, that should help with the plumbing expenses. But by the time I got home last night, I felt wilted, bagged. And I ate a big heaping bowl of coleslaw. Lowfat coleslaw, but just the same, an odd choice for 10 pm. Then I had my regular chocolate and decaf, and I felt full, and sheepish, but I had to admit, I still felt just like one big raw nerve. I comforted myself a bit by wimpering pitifully and leaning on Fuzz's back while he brushed his teeth, making comforting sounds, and that felt better. It would be good if I just did that first, without the food being my first port of call.

I'm still thinking about that whole victim thing, particularly as I publish these cartoons about my earlier life. I don't know where this is going, but I know I feel overly responsible for things.

It's a beautiful spring day outside, and I think I'll go downtown to do some errands before a therapy appointment and going to the studio, maybe treat myself to a sandwich there at the same time. Getting outside may get myself out of my head. Speaking of which, here's another random memory from my kidhood...

Diggin' in the Dirt...

The last week has been interesting. It's quite amazing to be in the position of being grateful that I had a food incident, my "bingette" of last week, because I seem to have been given some revelations about some aspects of my... what would you call it? A modern term for it would be my "operating system", but you could also call it my unconscious philosophy of life, or my schema if you will, my concept of the world and my place in it.

I had a breakthrough like this a few months ago when I realized just how controlled I was by my worries of other people's opinion of my work in the studio, and this kind of fits with it, my feeling of being a victim, something that dates back to my early days with my family. Somewhere I really identified with this and I have a feeling that by working with this old, and pretty outdated image of myself I can actually get a measure of peace.

So much of my inner work of the last 7 years has been looking at my experiences in the early years that have shaped my viewpoint. It's just been the last year or so after a fairly intense few months of depression that I've been able to address how those experiences color my present life and how they actually don't fit my life now, allowing me to put them aside to have a clearer view of reality. More specifically, I can see how I'm not the victim I used to be, and so don't have to still act like one.

Maybe when I was a kid I ate excessively to comfort myself in the face of events that I had no control over. Now that I'm an adult, I have control over much more in my life, and I don't have to eat like I'm still a victim.

Adventures in Ancient History...

Stepwork Sinks In, Slowly

"Stepwork". That's the process of using the 12 steps of OA, AA, NA, whatever 12 step program you like, to help me work out issues in my life. Sound like fun? You're right, it's not. It's tough slog, but I work the steps because I haven't otherwise learned a good way to deal with life's issues without regularly stuffing myself with food.

Lately, I've been trying to work on an issue in a relationship with a friend, and it's been interesting. I've written on it a couple of times (not here, it's too private and my emotions too strong to really be honest about them here--- yes, believe it or not, I don't post everything I think), and some revelations have come to me, particularly as I mused on step 4, the "fearless and searching moral inventory". It took a few weeks and a big food slip for me to get to this place, so it's not a quick fix. Step 4 is where I looked at the issue, who was involved, and what emotions this issue was raising . What I found was fear, and the origins of that fear, namely, how this issue sends me back to early life as an only child with an emotionally absent mother and physically absent father --- he travelled for work a lot when I was young. I also had very few friends. I was a very lonely, sad and frustrated kid.

I began to see that it wasn't so much that I was responding to a friend who I saw as abandoning me (I knew she would be away a lot when we got to know each other) as I was responding to my parents who weren't there when I needed them. Old fears were being triggered, and I was responding to those as much, if not more, than my present issue.

The other thing that came to me in the last couple of days was my part in the matter: I didn't think I had any control over how much I saw my friend, but I did. I have had opportunities to spend more time with my friend but have chosen not to for various reasons. And I didn't exactly burn up the phone lines trying to reach her. I made a few late attempts, just enough to make me feel good and smug in my victimhood. Oh dear, it's not pleasant to discover how much more comfortable it is to feel cheesed off in my default position as lonely, abandoned child victim.

I also forgot that in my life now, I have lots of friends. I am no longer that lonely child. I have many healthy relationships in the Overeaters Anonymous program, and friendships outside of the program that have been strengthened because I can work the steps rather than be a loose cannon fuelled on excess food. Then, I start feeling grateful, and a modicum of peace dawns on the horizon. Amazingly, that seems to have a fairly direct impact on my eating: I feel like I have more options, and the gnawing hunger diminishes. When I am stuck in the dead end alley of feeling used, victimized, eating seems like the only thing I can do to make myself feel better. This is a new thing, seeing how I let myself slip into that victim mode, and I'm sure it's not going to be the last time, but it's a really hopeful start. Not only can I see the importance of being more in touch with my needs and expressing them, but now I see how valuable it is to question my self image, particularly the one where I see myself as the constant victim.

Uncomfortable Emotions, Eating, and Happiness

There's an old saying that floats through the Overeaters Anonymous rooms: "It's not what you're eating, it's what's eating you", and I'm a big believer in that. I think that most of my food cravings come when I'm hurting, emotionally, or spiritually. A couple of other sayings related to that, seen on fridge magnets, are "The answer isn't in here" and "Face your stuff, or stuff your face". They all point to the importance of dealing with uncomfortable feelings so A) I feel better and B) so I don't eat. Interestingly, I only became aware recently that A) feeling better was the ultimate goal of all the therapy, support group meetings, writing and prayer that I've been doing.

Like most desperate compulsive overeaters, all I could see for the longest time was the goal of not eating like a crazy person. Only recently has it dawned on me that yes, that is a great and admirable goal, one that many of us struggle fruitlessly to achieve, but the ultimate goal is feeling whole, having a richer and fuller life, where food is not the point of living. You know, it's that eating to live, not living to eat maxim, and I think it's only starting to sink in. Obviously, I'm still having trouble with the compulsion to eat in an unhealthy manner. I was a dieter for most of my 40- some years on this planet, obsessed with losing weight, and I believed that if I could only be thin, I would be happy.

Well, if that were true, I would have been happy enough to stay thin all those times throughout my life when I had managed to lose large amounts of weight, instead of regaining the weight plus more each time. Through working the OA program and doing therapy I am now a healthy weight, but as Fran Kuffel so cleverly put it in the title of her poignant memoir Passing for Thin, I am only "passing" as a thin person. Inside I am still a compulsive overeater whose relationship with my emotions, and any sense of real hunger is tenuous at best.

Yesterday was fairly hectic, but I realized that in the light of my "binge-ette" three nights ago, I needed to spend a few minutes processing my feelings. And what I found was an old resentment that I had only partially dealt with a couple of weeks ago. So I did some writing on it, and today, I have to do some more, otherwise, I have learned at my peril, it will come back again to, frankly, bite me in the ass! Emotions are clever things, they always out. Even when I think, "I've dealt with that already!" it can come back. Just like the bhuddists say when they talk about life being not a straight line, but a spiral, where the same issues will often come back repeatedly in different guises or intensities. I guess by dealing with them, I can at least follow the spiral path, and not wear the same old circle in the grass, chasing my tail (or Oreos) over and over.

Was it a Slip or a Binge?

That's the big question for me today. But you know, it's not really important. Adding up the days of abstinence are nice, but they don't matter as much as me figuring out what happened and what I need to do avoid unhealthy actions. Two nights ago I started to eat after my husband went to bed. I justified it as a snack. But the snack did not end. I had a few almonds, and then some leftover turkey and stuffing, and then some more almonds, and some frozen chocolate, and then a slice of bread and butter. I didn't think I was bingeing but I might have been deceiving myself, because when I finally went to bed, my stomach was a little sore. The next morning, I got my usual oatmeal and looked at it and went, "ugh". I was not hungry, in fact I felt physically ill, just this side of barfy. Not a sign of culinary health.

Finally, I decided that I had broken my abstinence. My definition of abstinence is no bingeing and lately, I had narrowed it to no eating after dinner and my one or two planned snacks in the evening. So, technically, I would have broken it the moment I ate those first almonds. If I had stopped after the first handfull, I might have just given myself a pass and said, ok, that was just a slip, and not declared a break in abstinence. But the problem is, and the reason I have recently defined it so narrowly, is I have a difficult time stopping after just one bite. In fact, it feels nigh on impossible. Am I setting myself up to fail here? Am I being too black and white about it? That's a good question. I don't have a good answer. Except I do know that I did spend a lot of time "cutting myself a break" over the last couple of years, and I was gaining weight. When became more hardline on my definition of abstinence, about 5 months ago, I stopped gaining and even lost a little. And then I talked to some OA friends about it, and I went to a meeting last night. That was great. I was honest, and I heard the hope in my voice. I don't care how many days or minutes of abstinence I have, I still am WAAAAAY ahead of where I was five years ago.

There were a couple of interesting things about this break in abstinence: One, it wasn't one of my "classic" binges. The food consumed was less, and my stomach wasn't nearly as full (when I binge it usually is until I am so full I am in pain) Two, I wasn't hungry the next morning. I was really off my food. But by lunch time I was overhungry, and maybe a little hypoglycemic; I was feeling a little spacey and dizzy by the time I ate lunch. I think I was actually feeling physical effects from what I had eaten. Historically, I was so distanced from stomach & hunger cues that I can't seem to feel "true" hunger (rather than constant hunger) or anything less than greatly overfull. So, that was interesting, and maybe some progress.

But if I'm making this progress, why the binge? What happened? Well, it feels as if I was running from my feelings. I can tell right now that I'm waking up anxious. It seems I haven't been writing enough, I hadn't posted anything here for three days. I'm still feeling like a loose cannon after being sick and March break, I haven't been in the studio much at all. It all feels like my head and body aren't connected. I'm not getting the emotional/spiritual nourishment that I need. My sponsor is hard to reach, and I still have a hard time reaching out to others in the programme when I'm feeling glum, angry, whatever. Never enters my mind to call someone rather than have "just a little" nibble.

That's how it starts, with Just a little. And just a little would be fine, and I think that's where normal, non-compulsive eaters don't get those of us who can't seem to stop after just a little. They say, ok, well, have just a little, then you'll be sated, and stop. But it doesn't seem to work that way. There is a gnawing inside that instead of being calmed by a little bite, seems to wake up from a dormant state and roar for more. Either that, or it's been roaring for some time, I just don't become aware of it until I've fed it.

Anyway, I'm back on the horse, and I know I am on the right track. I'm not perfect, but I've had the true experience of another freakin' growth opportunity, and for that, I'm grateful.

One Foot in Front of the Other

Some days I don't feel like continuing, but I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, sometimes literally, say if I'm exercising or reluctantly dragging myself to exercise, or sometimes metaphorically, say, well, here. This is my personal work, and it's important, because even if not many people look at this blog, it's mainly for me. Keeping me out of the "existential angst" as a friend of mine observed this morning as the place we so often get mired up. I guess that can be seen as a possible pitfall of the "artistic" temperament. Maybe that's the problem with many of us COE's (Compulsive Over Eaters)... we're artistic temperaments caught in a world that is hopelessly wedded to the concrete.

So I gotta do the footwork, which feels like I'm humouring myself. But the alternative seems to be greater or lesser degrees of misery. So... putting it that way, if the alternative is to do some writing here, then go into the studio for a couple of hours, it seems like an ok tradeoff. So what if I'm not making much money right now? We're getting by. No cartoon today, I want to spend the time painting this afternoon. I don't think... alright, well, let me see how long it would take to post one...

And again, it takes me two hours to clean up, arrange and post a cartoon. Oh well, I still have time to get a couple hours in the studio. Enjoy...

Dealin' Wid the Feelin's

If Moses Were In OA...

Yeah, I'm just grumpy today. I was this way yesterday too. But it happens. I think I need to get back to work. The week off was nice, but I need to be working in order to feel I have some purpose. Does that make me a workaholic? Maybe. I'm certainly married to one, but mine takes a more subtle form. I don't work a lot, but I worry about it a great deal. Sounds like my perfectionism acting up. Again. Ah, the hindsight benefits of years of therapy and just over 5 years of being in Overeaters Anonymous. Oh rats! That's right, I forgot: I've been coming to the rooms 5 years the first of this month! It's been kind of like my marriage: I was never sure I'd be around this long and then I look back and marvel how it doesn't seem possible that it's been that long. It feels simultaneously as if I've been going to OA meetings forever and just a few weeks.

It was at a meeting yesterday that I remembered why OA works for me when all other things hadn't. It answered the question a sponsee posed earlier in the week. And that answer is... drumroll... spirituality. And the Group.

You were expecting bright lights, wahoo, yipee diet secrets, a burning bush, maybe? Yeah, well, that's what I was hoping for too, but no bushes are burning when I open the fridge door. I have to admit I'll still pick up the latest diet book trumpeting life changing secrets at the book store too, but usually I'll do it gingerly, read it for about half a minute and put it back with the rest, because I'm no different than most people. I'd love a quick fix that works. None has. Just look at all them books...

I am one of the last persons who wanted a spiritual program. I'm a fairly virulently lapsed Catholic, and the last thing I wanted to hear was anything resembling church talk. I am still close to agnostic, but here's what happened: I was desperate. I couldn't go three days without a binge, and I was so full of fear and angst, I could barely work. When my therapist sent me back to OA (her other choices were inpatient treatment and bariatric surgery was a very distant third in my books), I was desperate enough to think maybe, just maybe I didn't have the faintest idea what was good for me, and just trying a little faith in a higher power, might help, well, what did I have to lose? Other than the obvious 150 I so desperately wanted to lose...

I was also assured that OA was not a religion. But they do talk about God a lot. Yup. No arguments from me on that point. But it's a fairly ecumenical God, using the word as shorthand for a higher power. Twelve-step programs, originating with AA, came into being in the early part of the twentieth century between the world wars, when most Americans identified as believing in God. So, the book Alcoholics Anonymous, which still is the basic text for most 12 step groups, does mention God a lot. But after initial discomfort with it, I accepted it as a shorthand for a nebulous higher power I can feel in those moments when I plug into the universe, detaching my idea of a God/ higher power from the one I was raised with. To steal a phrase I heard in a meeting, I was able to stop thinking of God as the stereotypical old guy in a nightie, sitting on a cloud and shooting lightning bolts at me.

I just let myself give the whole God question the benefit of the doubt. Look, I'd fucked my life up pretty good here, what did I really have to lose by that? It didn't seem like a cult, because they didn't want much money, just some coins in the basket at the end of the meeting. I didn't even have to buy any of the books, I could just use the group copies or borrow someone else's to read during the meeting.

I don't think I can explain it here, at least not today. I'll take another crack at it tomorrow. I just know that even on a day, today, when I've been fairly grumpy (yeah, that again) I haven't overeaten. This afternoon Fuzz and I braved the treacherous slushy sidewalks of downtown for an afternoon walk --- the sun was wonderful --- and had coffee and split one of the world's yummiest brownies at our local young commie veggie joint.

On the way home I told Fuzz I was a bit grumpy at the thought of having what's usually an evening treat in the afternoon, kind of making me feel like there wasn't much to look forward to for the rest of the day. Then I said, well, if I really wanted, I could have some dark chocolate this evening in place of my yogurt and fruit snack. A rare exception to my rule of getting 3 fruit and 2 dairy every day. But tonight, I didn't eat the chocolate. I went for the yogurt and a banana. And it was ok. It was the healthy choice. And I don't really have a clue why I can do this now and not before. Except when I was in the meeting yesterday, I felt great. That keeps me going.

The Continuing Adventures of Fat Maggie

Well, this has been an interesting day. This has been a fairly unstructured week, as Fuzz is on March break. A couple of hours ago I was a little depressed because I felt like I wasn't accomplishing much today, but now it's nearly 6 pm and I think I maybe I needed a day of not doing much so I could clean up the cartoons above to post, and while adjusting them, I thought about how much my life has changed just from when I originally drew them in 2006.

I don't actually spend many days in bed anymore. In fact, I don't think I've done that in months. Not that there is anything wrong with that.... I still may spend the morning there, reading, having breakfast, or writing, but I don't hide there so much any more. I guess I'm dealing with life a little more. It's not perfect, but when I can stop, turn around and see where I was and where I am, there has been a definite shift. I've worked on changing and it's often little habits that I have to change: Not hanging onto grievances, letting stuff go, cutting myself a break. I'm starting to appreciate the value of being a little flaky and having a bad memory, and how strenuous physical activity can ground my brain when it just wants to float around in a worry-filled ether.

The other day a sponsee asked how I did it. She meant lose all that weight and not regain much of it. And I replied that I could be in dangerous territory again tomorrow, it's not like I suddenly got a get-off-free pass. I haven't been able to get hold of my OA sponsor to talk to her about it yet, but I did briefly touch on it with my therapist the next day. She replied that maybe I had developed a good enough appreciation for how my feelings could control my eating. Perhaps. But I am constantly in danger of forgetting that, it's a slippery one, and that selective memory is the nature of my beast. That's why I have to keep working on it, going to meetings. I think about the only way I can ensure that some things stay in the past is work on the present

Step Work Works. Dammit.

I'm not sure what happened, but yesterday went from blecch to pretty good. I did some of that step work, and not a lot, just a page or two of writing listing all the people I had resentments against. Interestingly, what came up a couple of times was I was angry with myself for letting myself down. Then I had a chat with my therapist to talk about it, those high (impossibly so) expectations I had for myself, and dealing with negative feelings. Then I had a great day: spent a couple of productive hours in the studio, went to a lecture on Rembrandt at the local university, went on a tough run, and then after dinner, gently dragged the now-on-March-Break Fuzz to see Persepolis, the movie, because I really like the graphic novels.

Dealing with the feelings is more than just finding a new coping mechanism. Coping mechanisms are like fixing a leak with a bucket. It's not a real solution, just a quick fix. Eventually the bucket overflows or drives you crazy with the dripping noise, and meanwhile, the water is rotting the ceiling and eventually you have a huge problem on your hands. I ate, still eat, to smother uncomfortable emotions, anger, fear, and even joy sometimes. But it backfires, and it inevitably gets worse.

When I first came to OA, and even for the majority of the last five years, I've thought, well, I have to deal with my feelings in order to not binge. Well, that is true, but that is not the bigger goal. My therapist suggests that The Big Magilla (I'm guessing as in the cartoon ape), is to deal with the feelings so I can be happier. Oh. Nothing to do with food. Nada. Zip. The food is just a side effect. That's a bit of a surprise, isn't it? Well, it is to a compulsive overeater.

I don't like doing step work. It wouldn't be far off to say I detest it. It's very uncomfortable, and it's hard to change the lifelong habit of seeking to blot out rather than deal with pain. But when I am finally ready to do it, it usually helps, and my mood rapidly benefits from it.

Just Call Me Craphead

I've been dealing with a lingering bad mood, a funk that flourished in the light of this virus I've been recovering from, but not recovering from fast enough for me. It's been over a week, and I'm mostly normal, but still a bit draggy. It feels like a lot of negative feelings, resentments and fears have been able to flourish because I'm not busy enough working or working out. I feel like I have a real head full of crap. Dealing with that crap without resorting to food is what I think of when well meaning professionals talk about when they mention "coping strategies" to deal with life when you're trying to survive an eating disorder. The people in OA would say "Time to do step work."

Blech. I hate stepwork, but I've gotta stop behaving like a sick person and shovel through the shit if I want to get rid of it. To paraphrase Paul Anka, "resentments, I've had a few..." Unfortunately, I can't spill them all here. Maybe some of them eventually, but it's a little too private. So I have to do that offline.

Instead, how about another installment of the Continuing Adventures of Fat Maggie...

Enough Snow, Already!

As I shovelled/chipped my way through the layers of snow, ice pellets and frozen rain, I realized I was officially sick of shovelling. It took a couple of hours for both of us to do the sidewalk, the walkway and driveway, and the snow was so hard it shattered into chunks as I chipped at it. It was kind of like shovelling blocks of wood that were either too heavy or slipped off the shovel as I tried to lift them. My shoulder hurts and I wonder if I need some physio for it. It's the same shoulder I hit when I fell off my scooter last summer.

And just yesterday I saw that guy riding the blue Vino! Sigh....at least the sun came out just before it set. And then there is daylight savings this weekend, hooray! I guess there is a light at the end of this snow tunnel. Almost nobody was working today, even Fuzz was sent home to get some much needed sleep. I took another day off on my extended sick leave from that virus, read a book for a while and then curled up with a kitty for a long nap. Those bits of winter are damn fine.

Back on My Sneakers

After spending the day waffling, I finally decided I would try running with my group, all 3 of us, last night. Thank God we were running last night when it was breezy but not too cold, and not today since the latest round of snow/ice pellets/freezing rain was unleashed upon us overnight. I was still coughing, and one of my group cracked "jeez, have ya got pleurisy?" I was coughing so much at one point, but despite the hacking and wheezing, the rest of my body felt great, and I was able to keep up and even lead the group at points. Halfway through the run I wasn't coughing much. After nearly a week of this virus making me pretty sedentary, it was really GREAT to be moving again.

It reminded me of that goofy Mel Gibson & Helen Hunt film that came out several years ago, What Women Want, I think it was, kind of a rip-off of the old Rock Hudson/Doris Day formula where a womanizing misogynist hit by lightning gains the ability to read womens' minds. Gibson plucks an idea from his ad-exec colleagues mind when they are trying to come up with a new campaign for Nike, and the tag line that stayed with me is "The road doesn't care..." As in the road doesn't care what you're wearing, how much you make, or what part is too big/too small/sagging...

When it works, running is simple. Just put one foot in front of the other. Really, so is walking. I walked several kilometers daily for years, and that was the good thing about it, just putting yourself on autopilot and going forward. Running is the same, but I think it's the intensity that hooks me. Yes, it's simple but it requires every ounce of energy, including brain space. The only thing I'm thinking is, "ok, make it to the stop sign, then we're done, oh man wanna puke, keep going, keep going just a few more steps...." and at the end I feel physically drained but mentally filled, as if mental space has been opened by the exhaustion. Maybe this is the endorphin rush, but whatever it is, everything feels quieted.

Omigod, it's an orgasm!

Maybe that thought will make the shovelling easier...

Day 126!

The Continuing Adventures of FM...

I'm just getting over a nasty virus that did the circuit of my head and chest, and I also got way too caught up with some volunteer activities this weekend that, surprise surprise, involved me organizing the food to feed 160 hungry choristers. Food ended up taking over my whole day. Well, not really. Part of the problem was I was a little too sick to sing, so maybe it was that it gave the food the opportunity to take over more than it would have otherwise. A lesson learned, or rather, RE-learned again for the hundredth time: keep the food in its proper place. That's the nature of my disease: selective amnesia.

Anyway, here's the next installment of Fat Maggie.... Our story so far: I started this in 2006 when I was suffering from a mild to moderate depression, and feeling very artistically blocked. So, I went back to the cartooning I used to do when I was a teenager, trying to combine drawing and writing a journal to help shed light on my issues. Today we have a glimpse about how hard it is to be an earnest artist trying to sell what is essentially oneself in a tough world...

So Far, It's not Looking So Hot

I'm in a funny mood. Publishing my sketchbook isn't helping, actually, so the therapy might not be helping. Maybe I'm missing my sponsor. I should call her, she's off skiing somewhere, but judging by one of my last posts, I may have a bit of a resentment of people who are travelling. Probably because I'm not. And I could, I could find the money to get away, but I'm not really trying to do it. It's much easier to sit and be ticked off. Hm. There's the nub of it really, I just want to sit and hate everyone. Ah. There. I've said it. It's much easier to sit in the kitchen, drink coffee, and hate the world than to do what I've got in front of me begging to be done. Go out and arrange for the food for my choir get-together on Saturday. Start painting the big canvas that is lurking in my studio and scaring the bejeezus out of me. That's much harder. Ok, so I guess there's not much to do but do it. After lunch. First, I want to make a nice vegetable soup for lunches this week. A good thing for a snowy day.

There it is again, food as comfort. It's cold, it's grey, and I want to hide. So, I'll make soup. I guess there are worse things to do: like get a bucket of chicken and eat it. Or a box of chocolates. Why am I not still 300 pounds? Because getting a bunch of food and eating it just isn't an option any more. I know where that leads. But I need to do some emotional work in order to keep myself from getting so desperate that bingeing becomes an option again. And that can happen in the blink of an eye. I have to reach out to others, but who, I don't know... Hm. Maybe another friend from the programme. Gotta chop. And get my phone out too.

It's 3/4 of an hour later, and I've got the giant stock pot on the stove (the one that doubles as an outdoor lobster pot on the propane cooker in the summer and has the flame marks on the side to prove it) and 2 trays of chopped vegetables roasting on the oven. All my anger and fear is chopped up with the turnip, leeks, garlic, celery, parsnips, carrots, onions and mushrooms, roasting with a good coating of oil and italian tomato paste. And the house smells wonderful. This is where I still go with food. I'm making something nourishing and tasty, and that is where I get my food jollies these days.

The food has been really good lately. I seem to have a surfeit of willingness. Funny sentence that first one, speaking of "the food" in the third person, as if it has a personality... Food with a capital F. Well, I guess that for a compulsive overeater, it does have a personality. A very intimidating personality, usually. It's a very polarized relationship and it can be extremely dysfunctional: I love Food and I hate it for what it has done to me in the past. I guess I'm trying to work on my relationship with Food here. And I have to, because I need Food to survive. It's not a substance like alcohol, that I can abstain from. Anorexics try to abstain from eating Food, it's their enemy, and it can have fatal results. My challenge is to put Food in a place where it doesn't rule my life. And I have more or less success on a daily basis.

Chefs, gourmands and the like often like to say they live to eat. Well, that doesn't seem to work for me. In my case, I was dying to eat. Because when I approach food in that manner, I can't stop. So I have had to pray for breaks to be put into my faulty operating system, and I have to change things, to build the breaks in. Write. Share. Reach out. Look in. Honour myself. In my case it is often the challenge to reverse the old Biblical admonition to love myself as I do others, because I think that one of the big triggers for overeating is making myself a doormat. And I do it so automatically.