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.