Waffle, so I don't EAT waffles!
I went to my group therapy session this morning, and I was thinking that this would be the day I withdrew from the group. Well, I'm not so sure any more. And, even more difficult, I'm going to try to NOT beat myself up over not making a decision immediately. I'm going to give that decision more time, because this morning went well, and I didn't resent the two hours I spent there. And I realize that I work in an isolating field (studio artist) and have a tendency to isolate beyond that. So, I'll give it some more time before making a decision. I waste much more than two hours daily watching TV. This morning I was reminded that I do learn things about myself through other's sharing so it's still worthwhile.
This afternoon I was trying to decide whether to go to the gym or do this. And I settled on this. I ran with my group last night and I was sore enough going to bed that I took a muscle relaxant and ibuprofen so I would be able to sleep, so taking a day off from the exercise is actually more healthy than doing it. I take at least a day off each week, so it can be today. Then I'll hit the gym tomorrow afternoon. It's usually less busy then, anyway. But it's funny how I feel rather guilty about not going today. Or maybe it's that I enjoy the feeling after a workout, kind of a cleansed feeling. Guess it's the endorphins.
I guess working through other stuff just doesn't give one the endorphin rush. But I need some balance here, so best spend some more time on what I need to do. Back soon, hopefully with a more "graphic" post. You'll see...
20.2.08
Managing my Day
Ok, here I am trying to plan out my day, and food is not the huge part of it it once was, so I have to figure out what else I am going to do rather than obsess about food. Welcome to life post-food. Warning: What follows is rather stream of consciousness... expect repetitiveness and circular thoughts...
I'm not sure how to do it. I've got a studio project on hold because a piece of equipment I'm going to use isn't available until the weekend. That leaves time to work on other art projects. What to do, what to do? I could scan some sketches into the computer, the old cartoons I found, and prep them to post here. I have a very long choir session tonight, but I might not stay for the whole thing. On the other hand, what else do I really have to run home to do, watch TV? Face it. Good point. I want to get some exercise today, I guess at the gym. Ok, that'll take a couple of hours. That leaves me a couple to do something artistic. I suppose I could go to the studio and lay out some paints and work on that old painting copy that I thought I was finished with. But honestly, I'm not sure I am. On the other hand, I could do another hour or so of composition on the new project.
Ok, what I'm seeing here are I could do an hour or so on a number of small projects. That seems pretty good. I wonder if I could spend an hour on some housework too? Maybe less, like sweeping the kitchen floor or putting away some things. I am trying to break life down into smaller, more mentally manageable chunks, because if I don't it just seems too much. And I want to eat. The food has been good since Sunday night. I think I just had to scare myself and reconnect with my committment to changing my eating. Since I've been practicing the Overeaters Anonymous life for the last almost five years, I have slowly been gaining an awareness of my default assumptions and habitual behaviours around food.
Recently, I've been looking at my fear of NOT eating at night. It's been a real security blanket for me. I have supper often late and then a snack, and until recently it was always a little nibble of something, or another snack... I think I was afraid of not having something to eat after dinner. I think unconsciously I thought I would die if I didn't have something to eat after dinner. Well, the first thing to go was the extra nibbles. And now, in order to lose that five or so pounds I've been whining about for the last few months, I'm considering whether my evening snack --- a small bar of very dark chocolate, has to go too. I think my meals are good, healthy and balanced. So, the snack is a perk, a treat, an extra. I don't think I even have to eliminate it entirely. I could choose to reduce the frequency of it, have it every second day. Or, I could have a half bar daily. There is also a mid afternoon snack of a small bag of almonds that I have most days when I've been exercising. But to be honest here, I'm not sure I need it either.
Like most compulsive eaters (over or under-eaters), I am not sure when I am hungry. My default switch was always stuck at hungry, no matter how much food I had eaten, or how long ago I had eaten it. Last night, for example, like most of my Tuesdays lately, I don't have supper until after my running group and an OA meeting, so it's often 830 or later. But I realized during the meeting that I wasn't sure if I was hungry. I heard the odd growl from my abdomen, but honestly, I couldn't actually feel any hunger. There seems to be a total disconnect.
At the same time, I am one of those eaters who compulsively must be doing something else while I have my meal. Not doing other tasks as such, but most often it's watching tv with dinner or reading the paper while I eat breakfast or lunch. Fuzz does that with me too. And I need to ask him again about how he feels about doing that. I think for me, it is some sort of comforting mechanism, an attempt to blot out the world with food and something visual that takes my mind away from my worries. Am I actually tasting the food? I think I am, I seem to take a lot of pleasure out of it, but I seem to have the fear that the food alone won't be enough. I need extra distraction. As I said at the meeting last night, I'm not sure I want to do anything about this right now, that I have the willingness. Or is it even broke? Does it need fixing? Am I being perfectionistic about my eating. I don't know, I just have the sneaking suspicion that confronting this kind of automatic eating/comforting behaviour may help me with compulsively eating, helping me be more in touch about my eating. It's something to examine, not necessarily change yet, or ever.
Day 112.
I'm not sure how to do it. I've got a studio project on hold because a piece of equipment I'm going to use isn't available until the weekend. That leaves time to work on other art projects. What to do, what to do? I could scan some sketches into the computer, the old cartoons I found, and prep them to post here. I have a very long choir session tonight, but I might not stay for the whole thing. On the other hand, what else do I really have to run home to do, watch TV? Face it. Good point. I want to get some exercise today, I guess at the gym. Ok, that'll take a couple of hours. That leaves me a couple to do something artistic. I suppose I could go to the studio and lay out some paints and work on that old painting copy that I thought I was finished with. But honestly, I'm not sure I am. On the other hand, I could do another hour or so of composition on the new project.
Ok, what I'm seeing here are I could do an hour or so on a number of small projects. That seems pretty good. I wonder if I could spend an hour on some housework too? Maybe less, like sweeping the kitchen floor or putting away some things. I am trying to break life down into smaller, more mentally manageable chunks, because if I don't it just seems too much. And I want to eat. The food has been good since Sunday night. I think I just had to scare myself and reconnect with my committment to changing my eating. Since I've been practicing the Overeaters Anonymous life for the last almost five years, I have slowly been gaining an awareness of my default assumptions and habitual behaviours around food.
Recently, I've been looking at my fear of NOT eating at night. It's been a real security blanket for me. I have supper often late and then a snack, and until recently it was always a little nibble of something, or another snack... I think I was afraid of not having something to eat after dinner. I think unconsciously I thought I would die if I didn't have something to eat after dinner. Well, the first thing to go was the extra nibbles. And now, in order to lose that five or so pounds I've been whining about for the last few months, I'm considering whether my evening snack --- a small bar of very dark chocolate, has to go too. I think my meals are good, healthy and balanced. So, the snack is a perk, a treat, an extra. I don't think I even have to eliminate it entirely. I could choose to reduce the frequency of it, have it every second day. Or, I could have a half bar daily. There is also a mid afternoon snack of a small bag of almonds that I have most days when I've been exercising. But to be honest here, I'm not sure I need it either.
Like most compulsive eaters (over or under-eaters), I am not sure when I am hungry. My default switch was always stuck at hungry, no matter how much food I had eaten, or how long ago I had eaten it. Last night, for example, like most of my Tuesdays lately, I don't have supper until after my running group and an OA meeting, so it's often 830 or later. But I realized during the meeting that I wasn't sure if I was hungry. I heard the odd growl from my abdomen, but honestly, I couldn't actually feel any hunger. There seems to be a total disconnect.
At the same time, I am one of those eaters who compulsively must be doing something else while I have my meal. Not doing other tasks as such, but most often it's watching tv with dinner or reading the paper while I eat breakfast or lunch. Fuzz does that with me too. And I need to ask him again about how he feels about doing that. I think for me, it is some sort of comforting mechanism, an attempt to blot out the world with food and something visual that takes my mind away from my worries. Am I actually tasting the food? I think I am, I seem to take a lot of pleasure out of it, but I seem to have the fear that the food alone won't be enough. I need extra distraction. As I said at the meeting last night, I'm not sure I want to do anything about this right now, that I have the willingness. Or is it even broke? Does it need fixing? Am I being perfectionistic about my eating. I don't know, I just have the sneaking suspicion that confronting this kind of automatic eating/comforting behaviour may help me with compulsively eating, helping me be more in touch about my eating. It's something to examine, not necessarily change yet, or ever.
Day 112.
19.2.08
A Lesson Learned... er, RElearned...
I knew I was going through one of those "pink cloud" stages with the food. Two weeks ago I had changed my definition of abstinence to include no food outside of scheduled snacks in the evening. Then, Sunday night, I almost lost it. I got complacent, and I had not stayed in touch with my feelings. I had spent Sunday evening watching television, continually. Not a good thing. My mood was bad enough that the food could not be far behind. I was re-watching "Pride and Prejudice" for the nth time. Why? I think it reaches back to that princess/rescue syndrome so many women have...phooey. What a lousy place to be in.
Having stayed up too late, Fuzz already gone to bed, I decided I should make the morning's oatmeal at 1230. Ding ding ding!!!! That's what should have been going off in my brain. But no, it was like I had pressed some sort of override switch. And I just about lost my abstinence. I knew going in to the kitchen that I wanted to nibble on the almonds that I put in the oatmeal, but I ignored the warning signs. I had almost gotten through measuring out the ingredients, made it through the almonds, when, not thinking (I think!), I put some of the dried cranberries in my mouth. It seemed totally involuntary. I didn't spit them out, but I chewed them in shock. What was I doing?
Was it a break in abstinence I wonder? Maybe, but I'm going to give myself a pass on that one. It was, after all, only a few dried cranberries. (hmmm almost typed cramberries...Freudian, wot?) And I really didn't realize I had done it until I did it. But, I realized, I was in a very, very dangerous place. Crocodiles, oh those are just little harmless logs floating there, aren't they?...
The voice in me, fuelled by some deep longing I didn't want to recognize, howled "Mooore! Moooore!" and I realized that was my inner demon waking up, and I was in a very vulnerable spot. Just then it seemed like the most logical thing in the world to open the fridge and start digging for something... anything. I tossed the oatmeal together and threw it in the microwave. Then I hightailed it to Mr. Darcy in the living room, only coming back out to that very dangerous place to stir and then put the lid on when it was done. Then I fled to bed.
Lessons learned:
Having stayed up too late, Fuzz already gone to bed, I decided I should make the morning's oatmeal at 1230. Ding ding ding!!!! That's what should have been going off in my brain. But no, it was like I had pressed some sort of override switch. And I just about lost my abstinence. I knew going in to the kitchen that I wanted to nibble on the almonds that I put in the oatmeal, but I ignored the warning signs. I had almost gotten through measuring out the ingredients, made it through the almonds, when, not thinking (I think!), I put some of the dried cranberries in my mouth. It seemed totally involuntary. I didn't spit them out, but I chewed them in shock. What was I doing?
Was it a break in abstinence I wonder? Maybe, but I'm going to give myself a pass on that one. It was, after all, only a few dried cranberries. (hmmm almost typed cramberries...Freudian, wot?) And I really didn't realize I had done it until I did it. But, I realized, I was in a very, very dangerous place. Crocodiles, oh those are just little harmless logs floating there, aren't they?...
The voice in me, fuelled by some deep longing I didn't want to recognize, howled "Mooore! Moooore!" and I realized that was my inner demon waking up, and I was in a very vulnerable spot. Just then it seemed like the most logical thing in the world to open the fridge and start digging for something... anything. I tossed the oatmeal together and threw it in the microwave. Then I hightailed it to Mr. Darcy in the living room, only coming back out to that very dangerous place to stir and then put the lid on when it was done. Then I fled to bed.
Lessons learned:
- It only takes me two weeks to get complacent.
- I WILL get complacent, and that's when it's dangerous.
- Not writing is trouble, and a sign of complacancy.
- Staying up late is trouble.
- Too much TV is trouble.
- I will stay up late and watch tv and then wonder why I'm having trouble.
- Being in the kitchen when Fuzz is asleep is dangerous.
- Being in the kitchen when Fuzz is asleep, I've watched too much tv, and it's late is practically suicidal.
- I've gotta call my sponsor.
15.2.08
Maybe I'm Just Getting Better?
I skipped out on my group therapy session again today. For the second week in a row I got as far as the parking garage, and instead of heading west into the hospital for the meeting, I headed east to the Starbucks. Actually, this time I was prepared: I had my laptop and a manual for the Painter program I'm yet again trying to learn, this time with more success, probably because I'm trying to do something specific with it, and this time it's more trial, less error. Or at least it was today. Tomorrow it could be the opposite... Rather than two hours listening to people's issues, I spent the time sketching on my pen tablet, exploring grains and scratchboard rakes and (digital) electronic pens. And drinking cinnamon scented coffee.
Anyway, I didn't feel a big urge to go to the meeting. And, I'm wondering if I really want to go anymore, period. The main reason I didn't want to go this morning was I already had a meeting with my sponsee scheduled for the afternoon, and I felt like I wanted to get some of my work done first. I get to two Overeaters Anonymous meetings a week, I see or talk to my sponsor, I have a sponsee and I have a weekly therapist appointment. So, really, I'm working my programme. And I write on a daily basis, here, and privately.
Since I did some work this morning, I was able to make a lunch date with BF, after which I phoned Fuzz and arranged a rendezvous to go snowshoeing before dinner. This has been a great winter, we have so much snow that reminds me of my childhood in New Brunswick. Today was one of the first really sunny days in a while, and it was getting cold but not too windy, lots of fresh powder, and very few people at the park.
It was a wonderful day. I'll have to call someone from the group and tell them I don't think I'm coming back, but I don't think it's such a bad thing. Unlike a couple of years ago, I don't think I'm running away from something, I think it's just there are other things I would rather run toward.
Anyway, I didn't feel a big urge to go to the meeting. And, I'm wondering if I really want to go anymore, period. The main reason I didn't want to go this morning was I already had a meeting with my sponsee scheduled for the afternoon, and I felt like I wanted to get some of my work done first. I get to two Overeaters Anonymous meetings a week, I see or talk to my sponsor, I have a sponsee and I have a weekly therapist appointment. So, really, I'm working my programme. And I write on a daily basis, here, and privately.
Since I did some work this morning, I was able to make a lunch date with BF, after which I phoned Fuzz and arranged a rendezvous to go snowshoeing before dinner. This has been a great winter, we have so much snow that reminds me of my childhood in New Brunswick. Today was one of the first really sunny days in a while, and it was getting cold but not too windy, lots of fresh powder, and very few people at the park.
It was a wonderful day. I'll have to call someone from the group and tell them I don't think I'm coming back, but I don't think it's such a bad thing. Unlike a couple of years ago, I don't think I'm running away from something, I think it's just there are other things I would rather run toward.
14.2.08
Just Type, Dammit!
This morning has been a classic case of Internet Time-Wasting Syndrome. There's something very Rube Goldberg-esque about my path through the internet; 1) read favorite comic strips, 2) check New York Times and Kingston Whig Standard headlines, read a couple of stories, oops look at review of new 2nd Ave Deli location... mmm chopped liver...look up proper pronunciation of kreplach vs. rugelach. Read and write posts on Chowhound about the smoked duck I bought @ Costco, including artistic license (aka little white lie) about resorting to scotch when trying to figure out what to do with duck whom I christened Murray, even though I don't drink any more... Look up the time of the improv show we're going to tonight--- nothin says romance like LMAO... answer e-mail, oh great another choir task to do... look up lyrics to Lydia the Tattooed Lady and look at sheet music possibly for choir or at least for our in-house coffee house in a couple of weeks, checked out the YouTube Muppet Show version with Kermit and a porcine exotic dancer... look up recipe for duck confit...but maybe I should look up rilettes...
And in the midst of all that, BF popped in for a chat, had coffee, made duck stock, and made lunch. Then called shrink. And I wonder why I don't get started at work until almost 3 pm! I've obviously been busy! The internet can be a real time waster, it's like living in your head, and because nobody reads this stuff, you just get a bigger brain to live in!
And in the midst of all that, BF popped in for a chat, had coffee, made duck stock, and made lunch. Then called shrink. And I wonder why I don't get started at work until almost 3 pm! I've obviously been busy! The internet can be a real time waster, it's like living in your head, and because nobody reads this stuff, you just get a bigger brain to live in!
11.2.08
Sometimes Life is Just Blah
This is something I have just recently learned happens to almost everyone. You get an attack of the blahs. I battled with depression for so many years, I began to think that every day that felt a little off was a return of the black dogs, but now I'm thinking that maybe that's not so. It only took about 6 years of therapy for that big revelation!
Today, I'm a little blah. I've still got a touch of that virus or flu that's going around, yesterday morning I felt sore and achy, and hot. Hot was bad. I never get hot in the winter, particularly on a day when the outdoor temperature was plummeting. So I took some muscle relaxants and lay on the couch for a while. In the afternoon, I felt better, so Fuzz and I did some shopping, and then I fixed a kick-ass chicken curry for supper (with help from Patak's vindaloo curry paste), and actually went to the studio for a couple of hours in the evening to work on my composition issues for my latest painting. Then home for some chai and dark chocolate.
Amazing, but it's been a week now since I vowed to not eat anything after supper but my evening snack (that would be the 33g bar of Lindt 85% dark chocolate), and those crazy evening cravings have been lifted. Why did it work? I think I was really ready, and I also committed, to my sponsor and food buddy, my almost 100 days of abstinence to this goal. In other words, evening nibbling = losing my abstinence from compulsive eating. At present, I am not concerned if I nibble or lick a spoon during the day, because it doesn't seem to be a problem then. It was the night where it was threatening to take me off the deep end into a no-holds-barred binge.
A theme that came up at my Saturday OA meeting was that we forget we have a problem with food at our peril. In fact, many of us would go as far as calling our problem a disease. Many disagree with that concept, but what has happened for me is it keeps me aware of possible pitfalls. It would be nice if I could have a little nibble of this or that in the evening, for a long time I thought I could, but then again, after a couple of bites last week, I felt what was akin to a giant sucking black hole in my stomach wanting me to consume MOOORE! Each extra bite didn't satisfy, it just seemed to strengthen the craving, the scanning of what to eat next. So, I've lost my right to eat like "normal" people. Because I can't, it seems. So I have to come up with alternate strategies.
I was thinking about those strategies this morning considering the experience BF had while visiting Disney World with her family a couple of weeks ago. Saturday night she moaned that she thought her clothes were tighter than before she left for the trip. I wasn't surprised. She had some sort of inclusive meal plan that came with dessert. Hmmm.... seasoned food fighter that I am, I could have seen that one coming. Travelling is hard. The portions of food are usually larger and higher in fat than home prepared meals. I have to plan in advance as to how I'm going to handle it. These days I look for hotel rooms with refrigerators and microwaves so I can fix my own healthy breakfast, and often will brown-bag lunches if possible. In our trip to Las Vegas in December, Fuzz and I actually ended up splitting entrees and salads at more than one meal because there was just too much food.
The irony is, BF's young daughter has multiple food allergies, so she does a lot of advance planning for the girl's food. Unfortunately, she doesn't prepare the same way for her own eating challenges.
Today, I'm a little blah. I've still got a touch of that virus or flu that's going around, yesterday morning I felt sore and achy, and hot. Hot was bad. I never get hot in the winter, particularly on a day when the outdoor temperature was plummeting. So I took some muscle relaxants and lay on the couch for a while. In the afternoon, I felt better, so Fuzz and I did some shopping, and then I fixed a kick-ass chicken curry for supper (with help from Patak's vindaloo curry paste), and actually went to the studio for a couple of hours in the evening to work on my composition issues for my latest painting. Then home for some chai and dark chocolate.
Amazing, but it's been a week now since I vowed to not eat anything after supper but my evening snack (that would be the 33g bar of Lindt 85% dark chocolate), and those crazy evening cravings have been lifted. Why did it work? I think I was really ready, and I also committed, to my sponsor and food buddy, my almost 100 days of abstinence to this goal. In other words, evening nibbling = losing my abstinence from compulsive eating. At present, I am not concerned if I nibble or lick a spoon during the day, because it doesn't seem to be a problem then. It was the night where it was threatening to take me off the deep end into a no-holds-barred binge.
A theme that came up at my Saturday OA meeting was that we forget we have a problem with food at our peril. In fact, many of us would go as far as calling our problem a disease. Many disagree with that concept, but what has happened for me is it keeps me aware of possible pitfalls. It would be nice if I could have a little nibble of this or that in the evening, for a long time I thought I could, but then again, after a couple of bites last week, I felt what was akin to a giant sucking black hole in my stomach wanting me to consume MOOORE! Each extra bite didn't satisfy, it just seemed to strengthen the craving, the scanning of what to eat next. So, I've lost my right to eat like "normal" people. Because I can't, it seems. So I have to come up with alternate strategies.
I was thinking about those strategies this morning considering the experience BF had while visiting Disney World with her family a couple of weeks ago. Saturday night she moaned that she thought her clothes were tighter than before she left for the trip. I wasn't surprised. She had some sort of inclusive meal plan that came with dessert. Hmmm.... seasoned food fighter that I am, I could have seen that one coming. Travelling is hard. The portions of food are usually larger and higher in fat than home prepared meals. I have to plan in advance as to how I'm going to handle it. These days I look for hotel rooms with refrigerators and microwaves so I can fix my own healthy breakfast, and often will brown-bag lunches if possible. In our trip to Las Vegas in December, Fuzz and I actually ended up splitting entrees and salads at more than one meal because there was just too much food.
The irony is, BF's young daughter has multiple food allergies, so she does a lot of advance planning for the girl's food. Unfortunately, she doesn't prepare the same way for her own eating challenges.
10.2.08
Two Potato
Without meaning to, Fuzz has dropped almost 30 pounds since I came to OA. I hate people who lose weight unintentionally, but I'm married to him so I can't beat him up too much. I guess. I never thought of him as fat, but as I see in old photos, he was looking a tad pudgy. Except next to me, he didn't look so bad. When you're morbidly obese, and even now that I'm a "normal" weight, anyone with less than 50 pounds to lose doesn't quite register on my radar, or fatdar as it were. I guess it's kind of fatgrrl snobbery: Don't complain to me how hard it is unless you've got at least a hundred to go!
Of course, I would never actually say that to anyone, and I'm exaggerating a bit here, but it is hard for me to really understand those who battle with smaller amounts of weight. Not to mention anorexics and bulimics. I get that they have a similar disease, unhealthy compulsions with food, but I don't think I really come close to truly understanding them. I'm just glad that my disease doesn't come out in those ways, because they can be pretty brutal too.
Anyway, I was talking about potatoes. I don't know when I loosened my grip on potatoes. Somewhere in the process of accepting that my own best efforts had availed me nothing, my eating habits changed. First the quantity, but somewhere potatoes mostly left the scene. They were never on my binge list, which actually only contains a couple of items, and a couple of situational items. It was probably when I started reading about high glycemic index foods, those foods that can really throw your blood sugar for a loop, and since I'm a type 2 diabetic, I started cutting back on those foods, or modifying them: stuff like eating more whole grain breads and pastas, and substituting sweet potatoes because they had some good extra nutrients. I'm not rigorous about it, I just started changing things up more. I used to do the meat, potato and veg meal thing commonly. And pasta and rice seem more versatile, when you can whip up a healthy stir fry or pasta with a little meat, some vegetables, and lots of garlic. Potatoes just started taking a back seat. And now, we'll maybe have them maybe 4 times a month. Often in a soup, like salmon chowder, and I do like vichyssoise.
It's not a big deal. But it's interesting seeing how things can change without it being a big deal. The non-food aspects of my behaviour changed, and then I think the food fit in with that change.
Of course, I would never actually say that to anyone, and I'm exaggerating a bit here, but it is hard for me to really understand those who battle with smaller amounts of weight. Not to mention anorexics and bulimics. I get that they have a similar disease, unhealthy compulsions with food, but I don't think I really come close to truly understanding them. I'm just glad that my disease doesn't come out in those ways, because they can be pretty brutal too.
Anyway, I was talking about potatoes. I don't know when I loosened my grip on potatoes. Somewhere in the process of accepting that my own best efforts had availed me nothing, my eating habits changed. First the quantity, but somewhere potatoes mostly left the scene. They were never on my binge list, which actually only contains a couple of items, and a couple of situational items. It was probably when I started reading about high glycemic index foods, those foods that can really throw your blood sugar for a loop, and since I'm a type 2 diabetic, I started cutting back on those foods, or modifying them: stuff like eating more whole grain breads and pastas, and substituting sweet potatoes because they had some good extra nutrients. I'm not rigorous about it, I just started changing things up more. I used to do the meat, potato and veg meal thing commonly. And pasta and rice seem more versatile, when you can whip up a healthy stir fry or pasta with a little meat, some vegetables, and lots of garlic. Potatoes just started taking a back seat. And now, we'll maybe have them maybe 4 times a month. Often in a soup, like salmon chowder, and I do like vichyssoise.
It's not a big deal. But it's interesting seeing how things can change without it being a big deal. The non-food aspects of my behaviour changed, and then I think the food fit in with that change.
9.2.08
One Potato
Someone was talking about funny things we've done with food over the years. Or more accurately, the absurd things our obsession/compulsion has made us do over the years. It was prompted by a couple of paragraphs in the OA 12 Steps and 12 Traditions (the "12 & 12") book where they do a quick summary of all the things we might have done for food: eating spoiled food, eating frozen food, stolen food, etc. etc. We reminisced about doing drive-throughs pretending you're ordering for several different (imaginary) people, having that unique experience of eating food simultaneously too hot and frozen because you can't wait for the microwave to thaw it properly, buying food for guests, making sure there was "enough" so you could have much more (eaten alone) than they would ever get, or want, and that idea that seems to have originated with Louie Anderson, having to buy the extra "almost home cookies" ---those are the ones that you polish off before you get home!
We were laughing our guts off. I used to go through the donut shop drive-through and I would even order donuts I wasn't as fond of, because it would look too suspicious to order a dozen of the one I really liked. Besides, after eating 4 of one kind, it's nice to mix it up a bit before you go on to the rest! Eventually, what floated to mind was potatoes.
Yes, potatoes. I'm half Irish and the rest mostly Scots, so the potato is practically a birthright. It was so important in my family, it should be on the family crest. My father would complain if we didn't have potatoes at least six meals per week, and I seem to remember having them for lunch and supper when I was pre-adolescent.
When I married Fuzz and started cooking regularly, the potatoes came too. I would buy at least the five pound bag, but often a bigger one, particularly if they were on sale. Now, two people shouldn't be eating all that many potatoes, but I had a thing for potatoes. I was always worried that there wasn't enough. I think it was because the potato was my hunger buffer, the way it was in Irish families. Not enough meat, veg looks a little weak? Plop on those fluffy potatoes with extra butter!
And if I was cooking potatoes, two potatoes did not a pot fill. Too much water, too much room, they'd get too watery, it was wasteful... so I'd peel three more. Just to fill up the pot, don't cha know. And if the Canadian Armed Forces dropped in unexpectedly, well, we'd be good! I'd plop extra potatoes on Fuzz's plate. "I don't want that many potatoes!" he'd whine. So I would grudgingly scoop them back into the pot. Truth was, I wanted that many potatoes, and so I needed an eating buddy...
Oops, I have to be at a meeting in 15 minutes... gotta go! I'll finish this later.
We were laughing our guts off. I used to go through the donut shop drive-through and I would even order donuts I wasn't as fond of, because it would look too suspicious to order a dozen of the one I really liked. Besides, after eating 4 of one kind, it's nice to mix it up a bit before you go on to the rest! Eventually, what floated to mind was potatoes.
Yes, potatoes. I'm half Irish and the rest mostly Scots, so the potato is practically a birthright. It was so important in my family, it should be on the family crest. My father would complain if we didn't have potatoes at least six meals per week, and I seem to remember having them for lunch and supper when I was pre-adolescent.
When I married Fuzz and started cooking regularly, the potatoes came too. I would buy at least the five pound bag, but often a bigger one, particularly if they were on sale. Now, two people shouldn't be eating all that many potatoes, but I had a thing for potatoes. I was always worried that there wasn't enough. I think it was because the potato was my hunger buffer, the way it was in Irish families. Not enough meat, veg looks a little weak? Plop on those fluffy potatoes with extra butter!
And if I was cooking potatoes, two potatoes did not a pot fill. Too much water, too much room, they'd get too watery, it was wasteful... so I'd peel three more. Just to fill up the pot, don't cha know. And if the Canadian Armed Forces dropped in unexpectedly, well, we'd be good! I'd plop extra potatoes on Fuzz's plate. "I don't want that many potatoes!" he'd whine. So I would grudgingly scoop them back into the pot. Truth was, I wanted that many potatoes, and so I needed an eating buddy...
Oops, I have to be at a meeting in 15 minutes... gotta go! I'll finish this later.
8.2.08
Surviving the Evening
Interesting that my prompter shows me that I have started three other posts with variations on the word "Survive". Sometimes that's how it feels with the food. Like I'm in a life and death struggle with it. I guess I am. I know there are lots of people whose health suffers because of compulsive eating, and I have been one of them. Luckily, I found a way to stop the march of my hypertension and diabetes, and eventually even roll back their progress to where, at present, they aren't there any more.
But I need to keep in the front of my consciousness that these things could come back if I start to slip into those old, very seductive habits. Make no mistake, my disease of compulsive eating has the ability to, apologies to Hobbes (the philosopher, not the cartoon tiger) make my life "nasty, brutish, and short". I'm only a few bites away from tumbling down that slope of despair. Sure, it would take a number of bites to get me back over 300, but the trend can start much earlier, and once it reaches a certain momentum, there is no telling how possible it is to turn it back. So I really want to keep myself from getting there. I think of BF's father who has struggled with alcohol for over fifty years and is about ten years sober. He says, "the easiest drink to turn down is ALWAYS the first one".
I've only got about 15 minutes to type before I head off for a group therapy session, an unmoderated group started by the addictions specialist that used to practice in our town. It's an interesting group, people have many different or multiple issues, some suffer from, like me, those pesky DSM not otherwise specified eating disorders. It's another thing that ticks me off about how compulsive eating behaviours are treated by the medical establishment and most of society as a moral failing unless we're too skinny then it's a specified disorder. And yet binge eaters (still lumped under the non-specified disorder catch-all) and others who have unhealthy behaviours around food have been found to have a much, much, higher concurrent incidence compared to anorexia and bulimia among people who are being treated for other psychological issues.
And there are bulimics there too and for a while we had someone who was exhibiting all the signs of anorexia. Plus people who have problems with alcohol, drugs, relationships, and money. It's interesting having a multi-faceted group, but sometimes I find it hard to share about my drawing lines around my food when there are bulimics and anorexics in the room, where doing that very thing may be something they have to avoid.
Akkk, gotta go!
Anyway, where I was going when I started this post was: Since I drew the firm line in the sand at eating after my evening snack on Sunday, announced to myself and my sponsor that I was doing this, the food in the evening has been fine. The obsession seems to largely have been lifted. To be safe, I'm even limiting going into the kitchen after supper. Fuzz brings me my snack, makes tea, and feeds the cats. I stay anchored to the couch and watch tv or play on the computer. Often a cat helps me out by deciding that the best place to warm up is by sitting on my --oof-- chest. My food buddy said it seemed like a situation of asking for willingness and the willingness came. Go figure.
Woohoo! 100 days since a binge!
But I need to keep in the front of my consciousness that these things could come back if I start to slip into those old, very seductive habits. Make no mistake, my disease of compulsive eating has the ability to, apologies to Hobbes (the philosopher, not the cartoon tiger) make my life "nasty, brutish, and short". I'm only a few bites away from tumbling down that slope of despair. Sure, it would take a number of bites to get me back over 300, but the trend can start much earlier, and once it reaches a certain momentum, there is no telling how possible it is to turn it back. So I really want to keep myself from getting there. I think of BF's father who has struggled with alcohol for over fifty years and is about ten years sober. He says, "the easiest drink to turn down is ALWAYS the first one".
I've only got about 15 minutes to type before I head off for a group therapy session, an unmoderated group started by the addictions specialist that used to practice in our town. It's an interesting group, people have many different or multiple issues, some suffer from, like me, those pesky DSM not otherwise specified eating disorders. It's another thing that ticks me off about how compulsive eating behaviours are treated by the medical establishment and most of society as a moral failing unless we're too skinny then it's a specified disorder. And yet binge eaters (still lumped under the non-specified disorder catch-all) and others who have unhealthy behaviours around food have been found to have a much, much, higher concurrent incidence compared to anorexia and bulimia among people who are being treated for other psychological issues.
And there are bulimics there too and for a while we had someone who was exhibiting all the signs of anorexia. Plus people who have problems with alcohol, drugs, relationships, and money. It's interesting having a multi-faceted group, but sometimes I find it hard to share about my drawing lines around my food when there are bulimics and anorexics in the room, where doing that very thing may be something they have to avoid.
Akkk, gotta go!
Anyway, where I was going when I started this post was: Since I drew the firm line in the sand at eating after my evening snack on Sunday, announced to myself and my sponsor that I was doing this, the food in the evening has been fine. The obsession seems to largely have been lifted. To be safe, I'm even limiting going into the kitchen after supper. Fuzz brings me my snack, makes tea, and feeds the cats. I stay anchored to the couch and watch tv or play on the computer. Often a cat helps me out by deciding that the best place to warm up is by sitting on my --oof-- chest. My food buddy said it seemed like a situation of asking for willingness and the willingness came. Go figure.
Woohoo! 100 days since a binge!
7.2.08
Draggin' my Knuckles...
I figure I've spent at least 6 hours shovelling this week, and my arms feel both really long, and soooorre... All this snow is great, but I'm running out of places to put it. But otherwise, I like shovelling. Honest. It feels great to look back at what I've done. We've got over two feet of snow on the ground, so once you've moved some, you can really see it. Not instant gratification, but fairly instant. Feels much more rewarding than vacuuming. Worth the sore shoulders, wet feet and cold thighs. And then I get to be justified in coming in and collapsing in a chair and enjoying a nice long coffee. And oh boy, in ten minutes I have to get changed to go running in it! I must be nuts! What was your first clue? Even I think I'm nuts.
I'd slack off but I know there are going to be at least two other people at the meeting place, so I want to meet up with them. Misery in numbers, and all that crap. Ow... thank god I don't have to lift anything while I run...Well, the nice thing about being sore is you know you're alive. And when I get home I can plop down on the couch and be a potato for the rest of the evening.
I haven't been doing as much writing as I feel I should, but I did spend a lot of time playing with my paint programme today, and I think I'm close to the final design for my newest painting. I'm learning how to utilize the layers and getting some pretty exciting results. It feels like cheating, because I'm manipulating my photos, but at least they are my photos... people like Damien Loeb are regularly sued for appropriating other's photos for their paintings.
Ok, gotta go layer up... me, not the composition. Anyone seen my tights?
I'd slack off but I know there are going to be at least two other people at the meeting place, so I want to meet up with them. Misery in numbers, and all that crap. Ow... thank god I don't have to lift anything while I run...Well, the nice thing about being sore is you know you're alive. And when I get home I can plop down on the couch and be a potato for the rest of the evening.
I haven't been doing as much writing as I feel I should, but I did spend a lot of time playing with my paint programme today, and I think I'm close to the final design for my newest painting. I'm learning how to utilize the layers and getting some pretty exciting results. It feels like cheating, because I'm manipulating my photos, but at least they are my photos... people like Damien Loeb are regularly sued for appropriating other's photos for their paintings.
Ok, gotta go layer up... me, not the composition. Anyone seen my tights?
6.2.08
A Breath of Fresh Air...Michael Kors' Anorexic Look!
Golly gee whiz, Mr. Kors, It must be hard to find just the right girl that has that perfect je ne sais quoi of an anorexic adolescent without any discernible curves or even breasts. Next fashion week, save yourself the trouble and just have boa constrictors model your clothes... but best keep those pesky NYC rats away from them, one big meal and the lines will be ruined!
I don't know why I let this stuff get to me, but it just does! Every dress should come with an eating disorders tax...
5.2.08
Hooray, My Sponsor's Back!
My sponsor just returned from a trip to Mexico, and I'm so happy! She's a good friend too, and we've had many fun times together, but I have to be honest, I'm relieved my sponsor is back. Why? It feels as if she's become a touchstone for me. She's been in Overeaters Anonymous about twice as long as I (I've been going now, wow, it'll be five years the end of the month!), and she's in a place with her recovery that I want to be in. Counting days of abstinence (I'm currently somewhere over 90 days at this point, wait, I'll check myself on the AA Sobriety Counter...I'm at 97!), I'm not sure who is ahead, she's had some slips, but I really admire her spiritual fitness. And her physical fitness is pretty good too. She's in her sixties, but she's very active, interested in healthy aging, and wants to be skiing for another twenty years. She invited me to join her running group three years ago, and I'm still doing it, after two operations and my now-you-see-it, now-you-don't hernia.
I just knew that I needed to talk to her, particularly about the issues I've been having with the nighttime nibbles. And I think that the issues of the nibbles are much more than the food. Evening I look on as relaxing time, but when I relax with nothing particularly pressing to do, that is when the cravings come out to play. Last night went well. I had a skinny latte at Starbucks after doing some shopping, then my regular snack around 9, and a cup of chai before bed. I did feel some cravings, but I found that if I kept myself out of the kitchen for the most part after dinner (Fuzz prepared the snack and the chai, while I played around in the living room with a graphics program on my laptop, bless his furry little heart), I could close the door on more food for the night. Now that it's part of my abstinence, it does feel as solid as a closed door between me and it. Or at least it did last night. Today is a new day, and since this is a new habit, I have to be prepared to be firm about it until it feels as natural as the other changes I have made over the last few years.
I think I have some fears to address. Career and money seems to be what leaps to mind. That means doing some step-writing about it. My sponsor is very methodical, dare I say in my more cynical moments, dogmatic, about step writing. Admit I are powerless around the issue, give it over to your higher power, and do an inventory around the issue. What emotions are being dredged up (fear, definitely)? What scenarios are there lurking in my brain? Past events coloring how I deal with it in the present? Ugh. This stuff is hard. And despite my desire to splash my life over the blogosphere, I think I need to keep this stuff private. I'll give you the summary eventually.
On a related topic, while prepping for those art classes I taught, I found an old sketchbook that I had actually cartooned out a bit of my story in, just before I started this blog. I've been looking for that since I moved a year and a half ago, because I want to scan some bits of it to post here. Sounds like fun... None of this is making me any money, but I think it's part of a process that just might end up being profitable, but obviously in a way I can't predict. I guess it's not my job to predict where this path might lead, just walk it, and let it reveal itself to me. Trust in a higher power.
Oh, that again.... puke!
I just knew that I needed to talk to her, particularly about the issues I've been having with the nighttime nibbles. And I think that the issues of the nibbles are much more than the food. Evening I look on as relaxing time, but when I relax with nothing particularly pressing to do, that is when the cravings come out to play. Last night went well. I had a skinny latte at Starbucks after doing some shopping, then my regular snack around 9, and a cup of chai before bed. I did feel some cravings, but I found that if I kept myself out of the kitchen for the most part after dinner (Fuzz prepared the snack and the chai, while I played around in the living room with a graphics program on my laptop, bless his furry little heart), I could close the door on more food for the night. Now that it's part of my abstinence, it does feel as solid as a closed door between me and it. Or at least it did last night. Today is a new day, and since this is a new habit, I have to be prepared to be firm about it until it feels as natural as the other changes I have made over the last few years.
I think I have some fears to address. Career and money seems to be what leaps to mind. That means doing some step-writing about it. My sponsor is very methodical, dare I say in my more cynical moments, dogmatic, about step writing. Admit I are powerless around the issue, give it over to your higher power, and do an inventory around the issue. What emotions are being dredged up (fear, definitely)? What scenarios are there lurking in my brain? Past events coloring how I deal with it in the present? Ugh. This stuff is hard. And despite my desire to splash my life over the blogosphere, I think I need to keep this stuff private. I'll give you the summary eventually.
On a related topic, while prepping for those art classes I taught, I found an old sketchbook that I had actually cartooned out a bit of my story in, just before I started this blog. I've been looking for that since I moved a year and a half ago, because I want to scan some bits of it to post here. Sounds like fun... None of this is making me any money, but I think it's part of a process that just might end up being profitable, but obviously in a way I can't predict. I guess it's not my job to predict where this path might lead, just walk it, and let it reveal itself to me. Trust in a higher power.
Oh, that again.... puke!
4.2.08
Upping the Ante?
I'm tired of a behaviour and I'm wondering if it is time to put a lid on it once and for all. Night-time nibbling. Actually, all nibbling, but after dinner nibbling is the part that worries me the most. I've always been a nibbler, and continued doing it all during the time I lost 150 pounds. But I've gained some weight, and I would like to lose 5 pounds, so I've been examining my eating. And I've seen that the eating behaviour that should be the easiest to eliminate is the nibbling. And I think the nibbling must add up, which could take care of those extra pounds.
But it's been damn stubborn to eliminate. It leaves for a day or two, and then it comes back. As it did last night. Fuzz had gone to bed very early because he has a cold, and so I was on my own, and there is that damn attractive leftover ham in the refrigerator. And I shaved off a little slice, and a little slice more, and THEN, I had a few spoonfulls of leftover corn. I finished with a couple of mushrooms. And I felt stupid. What was I thinking? What part of "I'm not going to do this" do I not understand?
Well, I know for one thing that there is a prehensile part of my brain that doesn't do logic. So, it doesn't help to beat myself up over it. If logic alone worked, I wouldn't have been forced to resort to Overeaters Anonymous, to admit that I was helpless in the face of this disease. As a good friend in the rooms once said, "I didn't want to be here when I first came; WHO DOES?!" None of us wanted to have to join this club. I was desperate when I first came. As I learned, the level of desperation was a good thing. It motivated me to give it my all. I weighed in the high 200's, and all indicators were pointing to me heading back up to, and probably beyond, my all time high of somewhere over 300 pounds. I couldn't go three days without a binge, I had hypertension, and was testing blood sugar indicating the appearance of type 2 diabetes.
Now that we're here, though, the alternative we've been given certainly beats the past experience. My life has improved in many, many ways, and I think it's because the food was only a symptom of my larger life being out of whack. I think my legacy from my screwed up family (see my previous posting) had driven me to a point where I couldn't see anything but a dead end. I was lucky. I chose to fight. Many don't, and sink into their addictions. The alcoholism of my father translated into my inability to cope with life without constantly eating. Honestly, though, the more I ate, the less I coped.
So, fast forward to today, and what seems like my relatively more benign problem with "the nibblies" (makes them sound like small gremlins). I read something the other day that reminded me to look back to how far I've come, not at how much further I had to climb. Doing that does make me feel good. Like yesterday. We had a foot of snow fall on Friday, and I'd done a lot of shovelling, so that my arms were quite sore. But I still hadn't shovelled a path back to the composter at the back of the garden. One of those times when I wish we did vermi-composting.
But I tried the technique, and it was satisfying, when I was half-way to the compost, about twenty-five or thirty feet down the yard, to look back at what I had already shovelled. And I could take a moment and enjoy the beauty of the late afternoon sky, and how the fresh snow makes everything look so wonderful. The last half seemed to go much faster.
Ok, so what does this have to do with me and the nibblies? Well, I've come a great distance. My life is pretty damn good. But it's not perfect. I think I've got a lot of underlying fear and anger still simmering below the surface. So, there's some areas I can do some step work processing on, writing about those issues. And if I am really bothered about the eating, and I certainly was last night, I perhaps need to make a commitment to change the behaviour. One alternative is to put nibbling into my definition of abstinence. This behaviour is causing me more grief than I want to live with, so it's something I'm leaning toward. The other option would be to move my evening snack to just being my dessert and then eliminating all eating after that point in the evening. That was suggested by my food buddy this morning. That part I'm resisting. I think the idea of the whole evening without any food is a little frightening. So... I need to think more about this, and it's also time to talk to my sponsor.
But it's been damn stubborn to eliminate. It leaves for a day or two, and then it comes back. As it did last night. Fuzz had gone to bed very early because he has a cold, and so I was on my own, and there is that damn attractive leftover ham in the refrigerator. And I shaved off a little slice, and a little slice more, and THEN, I had a few spoonfulls of leftover corn. I finished with a couple of mushrooms. And I felt stupid. What was I thinking? What part of "I'm not going to do this" do I not understand?
Well, I know for one thing that there is a prehensile part of my brain that doesn't do logic. So, it doesn't help to beat myself up over it. If logic alone worked, I wouldn't have been forced to resort to Overeaters Anonymous, to admit that I was helpless in the face of this disease. As a good friend in the rooms once said, "I didn't want to be here when I first came; WHO DOES?!" None of us wanted to have to join this club. I was desperate when I first came. As I learned, the level of desperation was a good thing. It motivated me to give it my all. I weighed in the high 200's, and all indicators were pointing to me heading back up to, and probably beyond, my all time high of somewhere over 300 pounds. I couldn't go three days without a binge, I had hypertension, and was testing blood sugar indicating the appearance of type 2 diabetes.
Now that we're here, though, the alternative we've been given certainly beats the past experience. My life has improved in many, many ways, and I think it's because the food was only a symptom of my larger life being out of whack. I think my legacy from my screwed up family (see my previous posting) had driven me to a point where I couldn't see anything but a dead end. I was lucky. I chose to fight. Many don't, and sink into their addictions. The alcoholism of my father translated into my inability to cope with life without constantly eating. Honestly, though, the more I ate, the less I coped.
So, fast forward to today, and what seems like my relatively more benign problem with "the nibblies" (makes them sound like small gremlins). I read something the other day that reminded me to look back to how far I've come, not at how much further I had to climb. Doing that does make me feel good. Like yesterday. We had a foot of snow fall on Friday, and I'd done a lot of shovelling, so that my arms were quite sore. But I still hadn't shovelled a path back to the composter at the back of the garden. One of those times when I wish we did vermi-composting.
But I tried the technique, and it was satisfying, when I was half-way to the compost, about twenty-five or thirty feet down the yard, to look back at what I had already shovelled. And I could take a moment and enjoy the beauty of the late afternoon sky, and how the fresh snow makes everything look so wonderful. The last half seemed to go much faster.
Ok, so what does this have to do with me and the nibblies? Well, I've come a great distance. My life is pretty damn good. But it's not perfect. I think I've got a lot of underlying fear and anger still simmering below the surface. So, there's some areas I can do some step work processing on, writing about those issues. And if I am really bothered about the eating, and I certainly was last night, I perhaps need to make a commitment to change the behaviour. One alternative is to put nibbling into my definition of abstinence. This behaviour is causing me more grief than I want to live with, so it's something I'm leaning toward. The other option would be to move my evening snack to just being my dessert and then eliminating all eating after that point in the evening. That was suggested by my food buddy this morning. That part I'm resisting. I think the idea of the whole evening without any food is a little frightening. So... I need to think more about this, and it's also time to talk to my sponsor.
1.2.08
A Whiff of Sulphur on a Cold Winter Day
My mental alarm bells went off when I first heard that sentence on the radio news, “The child was wearing a diaper and T-shirt.” What had simply been a tragic story of lost children in a bitter Saskatchewan winter night was suddenly tinged with that unbalanced, and yet too familiar feeling of something being terribly wrong. Where was the little girl’s snowsuit? What kind of parent would... shit. I caught a whiff of that old familiar sulfur. Of course. An unbalanced parent, likely with a substance addiction. Most commonly, a child is put in harm’s way by a drunk or otherwise addicted parent, which is how the sad saga on the Yellow Quill First Nation Reserve seems to be playing out. It’s a scenario that I, as the child of an alcoholic, am more familiar with than I would prefer.
I’m also a recovering alcoholic myself. It’s not something that I tell people outside my closest circle of friends, and truthfully, I was a fairly “high bottom” drunk: I stopped when I realized there were clear signals I was turning into my father. I haven't had a drink in almost three years. Unlike my father, I never drove drunk. I’ve been to enough AA and Al-Anon meetings to hear the stories of the other children whose parents regularly put their lives in physical and emotional jeopardy while in the throes of their addictions.
Thanks to the efforts of organizations such as MADD, we know the stories of people whose lives have been destroyed by intoxicated strangers. But it’s only been in the twelve step meetings where I’ve heard the tales of the kids who were regularly terrorized by their drunk parents, often by being helpless passengers in a car driven by that parent. Children of alcoholics often survive by being overly precocious, as will attest those who were forced to drive while still kids for a drunk parent.
Only a small percentage of alcoholics fit the stereotype of the street wino. My Dad was only typical in that he was the typical closet alcoholic: On the surface, one of the pillars of his company, his church, member of the hospital board, a hometown boy who made good. But by the time I turned twelve, my dad turned into a closet binge drinker, a kind of jekyl & hyde drunk: He’d seem fine and then when you would least expect it, he’d turn up so inebriated he could hardly stand up.
One crisp winter’s night when I was sixteen just won’t leave my brain: I had been at a high school hockey game with a girlfriend when my father showed up to drive us home. It wasn’t until we had gotten into the car and were leaving the arena parking lot that we realized that something was wrong. My father was so drunk he couldn’t put a coherent sentence together.
Luckily, he had been late picking us up, so the road wasn’t busy and he was driving slowly toward my friend’s house. Neither my friend or I knew how to drive, and we didn’t know what to do. I can still remember holding my breath as we drove across the bridge over the highway, praying that my father could hold the large 1976 Buick between the railings. After what seemed like a very long time, but wasn’t much more than a mile, we made it to my friend’s house where we coaxed my father in “for a cup of coffee.”
I was panicked, yet my first reaction was to shield my father from the fury of my mother when I phoned her to tell her what was happening. I think I was simply overloaded by the situation, and if my mother was angry, it felt like it would tip my world over the edge into the abyss. My friend’s parents ended up driving us the seven miles home. That was the only time I can recall that my father drove drunk while I was in the car, but it wasn’t the last time he would drive drunk. Years after I left home, he was mostly on the wagon, but had at least one brush with the law when he took out a stop sign. The code of silence was still in effect in those days in small town New Brunswick, so the story didn’t make it into the local paper, likely because it was his “first” offense... but really it was only the first time they had actually caught him.
The only other scary tale I experienced with my father, the booze, and the car was the day we were to deliver me and all my possessions to Ontario for my first year of university. My father announced he couldn’t drive because he was too nervous. What he really was, was very hung over, with a bad case of the shakes. Since my mother didn’t drive, I would have to do it if we were to arrive on campus in time for freshman orientation. I had had my license for all of one day, and the next day I was white knuckling us down a six lane highway for the first time, through Montreal en route to the 401.
The crazies that day just kept coming: On my way through the lobby of my residence, burdened down with luggage, I dropped a plastic shopping bag, breaking my father’s bottle of vodka. The smell of the alcohol seemed to completely fill the hall as the elderly ladies at the desk rushed to get the mop. I was humiliated and running on my last nerve when I finally met up with my boyfriend. Once I could ditch my parents, we had one hell of a freshman week. Likely I was in shock, but after the frenzy of the trip, I felt bulletproof and ready to have a rockin’ time to blot out the drive from hell. The first time I ever passed out was a Saturday night that month.
You’d think I would know better, wouldn’t you? Sadly, logic has nothing to do with it. If the craziness of an alcoholic family isn’t genetic, the loopy logic of surviving the latest bomb blast in an addicted household seems to make us vulnerable to those same demons that haunt our parents and bedeviled our childhoods. Dumb luck was the only reason I saw the signs before I drove through them.
I’m also a recovering alcoholic myself. It’s not something that I tell people outside my closest circle of friends, and truthfully, I was a fairly “high bottom” drunk: I stopped when I realized there were clear signals I was turning into my father. I haven't had a drink in almost three years. Unlike my father, I never drove drunk. I’ve been to enough AA and Al-Anon meetings to hear the stories of the other children whose parents regularly put their lives in physical and emotional jeopardy while in the throes of their addictions.
Thanks to the efforts of organizations such as MADD, we know the stories of people whose lives have been destroyed by intoxicated strangers. But it’s only been in the twelve step meetings where I’ve heard the tales of the kids who were regularly terrorized by their drunk parents, often by being helpless passengers in a car driven by that parent. Children of alcoholics often survive by being overly precocious, as will attest those who were forced to drive while still kids for a drunk parent.
Only a small percentage of alcoholics fit the stereotype of the street wino. My Dad was only typical in that he was the typical closet alcoholic: On the surface, one of the pillars of his company, his church, member of the hospital board, a hometown boy who made good. But by the time I turned twelve, my dad turned into a closet binge drinker, a kind of jekyl & hyde drunk: He’d seem fine and then when you would least expect it, he’d turn up so inebriated he could hardly stand up.
One crisp winter’s night when I was sixteen just won’t leave my brain: I had been at a high school hockey game with a girlfriend when my father showed up to drive us home. It wasn’t until we had gotten into the car and were leaving the arena parking lot that we realized that something was wrong. My father was so drunk he couldn’t put a coherent sentence together.
Luckily, he had been late picking us up, so the road wasn’t busy and he was driving slowly toward my friend’s house. Neither my friend or I knew how to drive, and we didn’t know what to do. I can still remember holding my breath as we drove across the bridge over the highway, praying that my father could hold the large 1976 Buick between the railings. After what seemed like a very long time, but wasn’t much more than a mile, we made it to my friend’s house where we coaxed my father in “for a cup of coffee.”
I was panicked, yet my first reaction was to shield my father from the fury of my mother when I phoned her to tell her what was happening. I think I was simply overloaded by the situation, and if my mother was angry, it felt like it would tip my world over the edge into the abyss. My friend’s parents ended up driving us the seven miles home. That was the only time I can recall that my father drove drunk while I was in the car, but it wasn’t the last time he would drive drunk. Years after I left home, he was mostly on the wagon, but had at least one brush with the law when he took out a stop sign. The code of silence was still in effect in those days in small town New Brunswick, so the story didn’t make it into the local paper, likely because it was his “first” offense... but really it was only the first time they had actually caught him.
The only other scary tale I experienced with my father, the booze, and the car was the day we were to deliver me and all my possessions to Ontario for my first year of university. My father announced he couldn’t drive because he was too nervous. What he really was, was very hung over, with a bad case of the shakes. Since my mother didn’t drive, I would have to do it if we were to arrive on campus in time for freshman orientation. I had had my license for all of one day, and the next day I was white knuckling us down a six lane highway for the first time, through Montreal en route to the 401.
The crazies that day just kept coming: On my way through the lobby of my residence, burdened down with luggage, I dropped a plastic shopping bag, breaking my father’s bottle of vodka. The smell of the alcohol seemed to completely fill the hall as the elderly ladies at the desk rushed to get the mop. I was humiliated and running on my last nerve when I finally met up with my boyfriend. Once I could ditch my parents, we had one hell of a freshman week. Likely I was in shock, but after the frenzy of the trip, I felt bulletproof and ready to have a rockin’ time to blot out the drive from hell. The first time I ever passed out was a Saturday night that month.
You’d think I would know better, wouldn’t you? Sadly, logic has nothing to do with it. If the craziness of an alcoholic family isn’t genetic, the loopy logic of surviving the latest bomb blast in an addicted household seems to make us vulnerable to those same demons that haunt our parents and bedeviled our childhoods. Dumb luck was the only reason I saw the signs before I drove through them.
31.1.08
Ironies Abound
Of course, after writing that I had to write in order to survive, I didn't do it for four days! The perfectionist in me wants to don the hair shirt, but I'll stifle that. It's just life.
I had a really busy day on Monday teaching the art classes, and then was out the door early Tuesday for my dental appointment. Yesterday, I had to get at it fairly quickly to do what I had to do, making photocopies and working out at the Y, as a big storm bared down on us and I was wondering if we would even have power later in the day. The power held, and in the evening I was on deck for our community choir post-concert debrief/coffee house. I ended up MC-ing and also helped to provide a suitable ambience through several living room lamps and a few dozen votive candles that turned the cavernous church hall into a cozy cafe. The individual talents in our choir that we don't get to see most of the time is truly amazing... Plus I had a lot of paperwork to distribute and collect for the debrief. I really did A LOT last night. Next year it might be a little different. No, next year it WILL be a little different. I'll leave the paperwork for someone else. And work on the ambient lighting more. I liked the mood. I enjoy hosting the party, particularly because it's not at my house!
The teaching on Monday, eeehhhhh... it wasn't so much fun. Nothing bad happened. We had some kids that needed reining in during the afternoon session, but their teacher arrived and she basically sat on them. I don't know. It is something I am slowly digesting. I was surprised at the student's lack of skill in some respects, but I guess that was bound to happen. I've spent a lot of time in an ivory tower, and so to see what kids are doing (more like aren't doing) in schools where the arts have been really given short shrift was a bit of a shock. I would like to work with small groups (ie 6 kids) on the finer points of art, but I'm not sure that is going to happen. I can talk with my friend the organizer when she returns from a trip. But not another large group. Too much crowd control while I'm trying to give them an intensive dose of art.
Too much activity, too little thought. Now I'm talking about me. I watch my mood slowly sour when I do this. Plus my sponsor has been away in Mexico, so I'm missing our weekly talks... And my sponsee has been sick so I didn't see her either. Yow! I'm in a dangerous place here! I'm amazed that my food hasn't been worse than it has been. If I don't change something, I'm going to crash.
How has the food been? Not too bad, but I'm still struggling with the nibblies. Nightime nibblies, a bit of ham or a few strands of the spaghetti I'm putting in the fridge in after dinner cleanup. And it bugs me. I would like to be about 5 pounds less so my size 8s are more comfortable, and I've seen the nibbling as the best place to make a change in my behaviour. And yet I haven't really committed to changing that, ie putting it as part of my abstinence definition. I guess I wonder if I'm becoming too much of a weight control monk. How big an issue is this? I'm not sure. It's hard not to be too much of a nazi about this. I'm also wondering if I need to weigh and measure more. Again, it's a question of degree with this.
Or do I just need to keep a more conscious contact with my higher power and let the food fall where it may? Will the obsession be lifted from me? I know I'm powerless over the food, but where does my higher power want me to go with this? I think I need to do some more reading, listening, and talking with my fellow sufferers on this point.
Interesting that while I often collapse on the couch in the late evening and I think of myself as a night owl I rarely write at that time. Just now I think that before making any big changes in my food plan I should write down what I have been eating. When I'm aware of what I've been doing, maybe I can see more clearly if & where changes could be made. Ok, that I can commit to. Write it down for a week.
In other parts of my life, I'm working on Photoshopping some of my photos for a new painting. However, learning to use the program I've selected is often like, well, picking up my laptop and whacking myself on the forehead with it! It took an hour of playing around to simply stitch a couple of background shots together. (One of the less successful attempts can be seen to the left...)
Hm. Since there is such nice light today, I could try taking some more reference shots. I have a rather ambitious plan for one, but I'm not sure that I'm not biting off a little more than I can chew here....akkk, always the food!!!!
I had a really busy day on Monday teaching the art classes, and then was out the door early Tuesday for my dental appointment. Yesterday, I had to get at it fairly quickly to do what I had to do, making photocopies and working out at the Y, as a big storm bared down on us and I was wondering if we would even have power later in the day. The power held, and in the evening I was on deck for our community choir post-concert debrief/coffee house. I ended up MC-ing and also helped to provide a suitable ambience through several living room lamps and a few dozen votive candles that turned the cavernous church hall into a cozy cafe. The individual talents in our choir that we don't get to see most of the time is truly amazing... Plus I had a lot of paperwork to distribute and collect for the debrief. I really did A LOT last night. Next year it might be a little different. No, next year it WILL be a little different. I'll leave the paperwork for someone else. And work on the ambient lighting more. I liked the mood. I enjoy hosting the party, particularly because it's not at my house!
The teaching on Monday, eeehhhhh... it wasn't so much fun. Nothing bad happened. We had some kids that needed reining in during the afternoon session, but their teacher arrived and she basically sat on them. I don't know. It is something I am slowly digesting. I was surprised at the student's lack of skill in some respects, but I guess that was bound to happen. I've spent a lot of time in an ivory tower, and so to see what kids are doing (more like aren't doing) in schools where the arts have been really given short shrift was a bit of a shock. I would like to work with small groups (ie 6 kids) on the finer points of art, but I'm not sure that is going to happen. I can talk with my friend the organizer when she returns from a trip. But not another large group. Too much crowd control while I'm trying to give them an intensive dose of art.
Too much activity, too little thought. Now I'm talking about me. I watch my mood slowly sour when I do this. Plus my sponsor has been away in Mexico, so I'm missing our weekly talks... And my sponsee has been sick so I didn't see her either. Yow! I'm in a dangerous place here! I'm amazed that my food hasn't been worse than it has been. If I don't change something, I'm going to crash.
How has the food been? Not too bad, but I'm still struggling with the nibblies. Nightime nibblies, a bit of ham or a few strands of the spaghetti I'm putting in the fridge in after dinner cleanup. And it bugs me. I would like to be about 5 pounds less so my size 8s are more comfortable, and I've seen the nibbling as the best place to make a change in my behaviour. And yet I haven't really committed to changing that, ie putting it as part of my abstinence definition. I guess I wonder if I'm becoming too much of a weight control monk. How big an issue is this? I'm not sure. It's hard not to be too much of a nazi about this. I'm also wondering if I need to weigh and measure more. Again, it's a question of degree with this.
Or do I just need to keep a more conscious contact with my higher power and let the food fall where it may? Will the obsession be lifted from me? I know I'm powerless over the food, but where does my higher power want me to go with this? I think I need to do some more reading, listening, and talking with my fellow sufferers on this point.
Interesting that while I often collapse on the couch in the late evening and I think of myself as a night owl I rarely write at that time. Just now I think that before making any big changes in my food plan I should write down what I have been eating. When I'm aware of what I've been doing, maybe I can see more clearly if & where changes could be made. Ok, that I can commit to. Write it down for a week.
In other parts of my life, I'm working on Photoshopping some of my photos for a new painting. However, learning to use the program I've selected is often like, well, picking up my laptop and whacking myself on the forehead with it! It took an hour of playing around to simply stitch a couple of background shots together. (One of the less successful attempts can be seen to the left...)Hm. Since there is such nice light today, I could try taking some more reference shots. I have a rather ambitious plan for one, but I'm not sure that I'm not biting off a little more than I can chew here....akkk, always the food!!!!
27.1.08
Stopping in order to stop
I have to write if I'm not going to eat compulsively. But I can't write if I don't stop, and sit down at the computer. I can get so caught up in my daily schedule that I can let it slide more or less completely, but when I do that, within a short period of time I can find other things sliding until I may find myself in a desperate place with my emotions. I get pissy, pessimistic. That inevitably ends up with me craving more food. It's like a black hole in my psyche opens and starts sucking my optimism into it. And the food is like a branch that I have always clutched at when I feel myself even slightly slipping over the brink.
That branch reminds me of a book I read a long time ago at the suggestion of my doctor, Eating in the Light of the Moon, and the author likened eating disorders to a log that you might have clung on to, floating in a flooded river, in order to survive a challenging time in your life. Yeah, I guess my childhood, even with its nice middle class veneer could fit that metaphor. Whatever happened, I seemed to need a crutch, that log. And eventually, in order to get to the shore from the flood, you have to let go of that log and step out on to the shore. I guess that's what you would call getting grounded. My problem was, I had latched on to that log for way too long, and the attachment to my log was threatening to drown me in physical and emotional problems.
I don't remember anything else much about the book, it didn't really seem to help with my binging problem at the time, but I come back to that log metaphor often.
So, I have to stop and write in the middle of my day in order take some stock of what is going on in my savage breast, or more likely, my fevered cranium. Lately I've been noticing people in 12 step meetings talking about all the chatter that goes on in their head --- you know, the committee that never takes a coffee break, just goes on and on and on, so much so that you can't hear much of what's going on around you. The committee is quite happy to construct an alternate reality for you, with very little input from what's actually out there, a rehash of past events. Of course, everyone's reality is subjective. But I think my reality is sometimes so subjective, it's unhealthily distorted. I think it's just a question of degree, where I fall in that continuum between being very aware of my surroundings to off living somewhere in my la la land head. I guess that's what the weather is like on Fatgrrl. And Planet Fatgrrl often ain't exactly a happy place. Well, some bits are, but there seem to be a few too many sketchy neighbourhoods for my taste!
Sorry for the maelstrom of metaphors here, the planet with neighbourhoods, and logs, and rivers and committees, but it's interesting to see all this gushing out of my brain. I think it's just a small sample of what's constantly swirling around there. It's one of those planets with a very thick atmosphere that threatens to obscure the sun. Speaking of obscure, hooboy...
ANYWAY... it's got to all work together. Understanding why I eat is not enough. Reading good books is not enough. Going to meetings is not enough. Talking to others is not enough. Telling myself I am not going to eat something is not enough. Writing is not enough. Praying is not enough. I need all of it. And still I am tempted. I have to work my butt off working my program. And I also have to literally work my butt off because the physical exercise has to come into it too because I want to feel physically good in my skin and not have to eat only lettuce sandwiches. Reading all this is daunting, but if I have anything to share with you , it's that doing all this stuff? ---- it's thrilling.
That branch reminds me of a book I read a long time ago at the suggestion of my doctor, Eating in the Light of the Moon, and the author likened eating disorders to a log that you might have clung on to, floating in a flooded river, in order to survive a challenging time in your life. Yeah, I guess my childhood, even with its nice middle class veneer could fit that metaphor. Whatever happened, I seemed to need a crutch, that log. And eventually, in order to get to the shore from the flood, you have to let go of that log and step out on to the shore. I guess that's what you would call getting grounded. My problem was, I had latched on to that log for way too long, and the attachment to my log was threatening to drown me in physical and emotional problems.
I don't remember anything else much about the book, it didn't really seem to help with my binging problem at the time, but I come back to that log metaphor often.
So, I have to stop and write in the middle of my day in order take some stock of what is going on in my savage breast, or more likely, my fevered cranium. Lately I've been noticing people in 12 step meetings talking about all the chatter that goes on in their head --- you know, the committee that never takes a coffee break, just goes on and on and on, so much so that you can't hear much of what's going on around you. The committee is quite happy to construct an alternate reality for you, with very little input from what's actually out there, a rehash of past events. Of course, everyone's reality is subjective. But I think my reality is sometimes so subjective, it's unhealthily distorted. I think it's just a question of degree, where I fall in that continuum between being very aware of my surroundings to off living somewhere in my la la land head. I guess that's what the weather is like on Fatgrrl. And Planet Fatgrrl often ain't exactly a happy place. Well, some bits are, but there seem to be a few too many sketchy neighbourhoods for my taste!
Sorry for the maelstrom of metaphors here, the planet with neighbourhoods, and logs, and rivers and committees, but it's interesting to see all this gushing out of my brain. I think it's just a small sample of what's constantly swirling around there. It's one of those planets with a very thick atmosphere that threatens to obscure the sun. Speaking of obscure, hooboy...
ANYWAY... it's got to all work together. Understanding why I eat is not enough. Reading good books is not enough. Going to meetings is not enough. Talking to others is not enough. Telling myself I am not going to eat something is not enough. Writing is not enough. Praying is not enough. I need all of it. And still I am tempted. I have to work my butt off working my program. And I also have to literally work my butt off because the physical exercise has to come into it too because I want to feel physically good in my skin and not have to eat only lettuce sandwiches. Reading all this is daunting, but if I have anything to share with you , it's that doing all this stuff? ---- it's thrilling.
25.1.08
Gifts
Well, I think I got another gift from working the steps this week: I was able to try teaching again. This is pretty big. I used to teach, but badly, and well over ten years ago. I didn't think I was cut out for it, but I've been thinking that maybe I just wasn't ready for it. I don't actually want to be a regular classroom teacher, I don't have the drive for it that you need to be a good one, and despite the fact it pays lousy, I still want to be an artist. But I might be able to do some art teaching, possibly in a school or at my own studio, or a combination of the above.
How do the steps help me with this? Well, it's helping me deal with the maelstrom of emotions that teaching conjure up, particularly the big FEAR that has been enveloping my mind when considering it. I can't eat over it any more, I know where that sad storyline goes, and I want to try to pass on some of that information I've collected through twenty years of being an art student. Unlike the studio, teaching is, duh, not a solitary occupation, and that's a nice change. I think I can see that if I can make this work, it could be very rewarding.
In some respects, I think I've been allowed to mature, develop some skills that weren't possible for that scared little kid inside me. Working through the fear, I can start seeing the joy. I used to eat to suppress that fear. Note to self: doesn't work. It might make it easier to nap for an hour but then the fear returns, refreshed by the food, and being stuffed to the gills makes it even harder to deal with it.
The other thing that working my program has shown me is that sharing my fears with some people that I trust (which, BTW, I have learned is not necessarily everyone I meet in the rooms) in OA helps me to work through the fears. They may or may not have suggestions, but by just sharing it, I feel some support, and sometimes while sharing, an idea will leap to mind, or I'll gain a fuller perspective. This is all new stuff for me --- I didn't get it growing up, although I'm sure that if my parents themselves possessed these skills, they would have passed them on to me. It's not their fault nobody told them.
I guess it's true that this way of life is not just about the food. In fact, the more I practice this stuff, the more the food retreats into being a part of my life, not my whole life.
How do the steps help me with this? Well, it's helping me deal with the maelstrom of emotions that teaching conjure up, particularly the big FEAR that has been enveloping my mind when considering it. I can't eat over it any more, I know where that sad storyline goes, and I want to try to pass on some of that information I've collected through twenty years of being an art student. Unlike the studio, teaching is, duh, not a solitary occupation, and that's a nice change. I think I can see that if I can make this work, it could be very rewarding.
In some respects, I think I've been allowed to mature, develop some skills that weren't possible for that scared little kid inside me. Working through the fear, I can start seeing the joy. I used to eat to suppress that fear. Note to self: doesn't work. It might make it easier to nap for an hour but then the fear returns, refreshed by the food, and being stuffed to the gills makes it even harder to deal with it.
The other thing that working my program has shown me is that sharing my fears with some people that I trust (which, BTW, I have learned is not necessarily everyone I meet in the rooms) in OA helps me to work through the fears. They may or may not have suggestions, but by just sharing it, I feel some support, and sometimes while sharing, an idea will leap to mind, or I'll gain a fuller perspective. This is all new stuff for me --- I didn't get it growing up, although I'm sure that if my parents themselves possessed these skills, they would have passed them on to me. It's not their fault nobody told them.
I guess it's true that this way of life is not just about the food. In fact, the more I practice this stuff, the more the food retreats into being a part of my life, not my whole life.
24.1.08
Opening the Clam
My mind is like a clam. If I don't open it up and look at it regularly, it slams shut and threatens to never open, not even if I take a sharp knife to it. In order to keep it opening, I have to practice doing so regularly.
This morning I didn't write. I napped, I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher. I even bagged up the recycling for tonight. If that isn't a sign of procrastination, I don't know what is. Why do I even try opening the clam? Well, for the simple reason that I have to. If I don't want to slide into compulsive eating. It took me a long time to make that association, sure, my OA meetings are full of people who say that literature, meditation and prayer on a daily basis are what keeps them sane, but I really didn't believe it would work for me. Or I didn't believe that I could keep it up for a long period of time. After all, I was Miss Try Anything Once, but ask me to keep doing it, fuggeddaboutit.
But at some point I was tired of the craziness. Tired enough to try doing it differently at least. They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Then sanity is going, ok, maybe I should try doing it differently if I want my life to be different. I don't think I'm that unlike the majority of people who can be told something by people about a million times before it actually takes, and only really believe it when seeing and feeling it ourselves. Well, I've found a couple of things that I used to enjoy aren't so enjoyable, and in some cases, I now prefer the sane behviour/substance. I'm just do it because told it's good for me, the sane choice actually feels better.
For instance, some junk foods I rarely eat any more because they are so damn unsatisfying. Donuts are one of them. Like Louie Anderson says, you don't even taste that first one, it's chomp, chomp, and slurrph, you've inhaled it and aren't even sure you actually ate it. Not positive my teeth actually made contact on the way down. It just paved the way for the next one. Ones. All one doughnut does for me is set up the craving for more. On its own, its particularly unsatisfying. I'd much rather have an ounce of really dark chocolate and a nice cup of a very good decaf coffee or chai. It takes as long to eat, actually longer because the chocolate demands savouring, and I can stop with one.
It's kind of like that with the writing. Invariably, I will feel better after doing this. And that feeling better sets up the craving to repeat those good feelings. No, it's not the same as a good binge (an oxymoron if I ever heard one), but I'm starting to savour the long term benefits of emotional sanity. And I'm talking beyond the obvious pleasures of being able to fit into the same normal sized clothes year after year that I don't have to go to the fat people ghettos to buy.
Less obvious is the sheer pleasure of physical exercise. For a while was I just did it because 1) I was "skeerd" of dying and bad health and 2) it would help me lose weight faster. I really disliked it at first. Initially, all I could do was take a hour's walk at night (less people who would see me) with Fuzz before bed. Now, this has taken over five years, but I have to say that now exercise gives me a high. In addition, I'm now fit enough that physical challenges like moving house, walking a distance to explore someplace on a trip, sprinting through the airport to catch a connection, or setting up a campsite when the weather suddenly turns really hot won't throw me for the loop it used to.
Of course, none of this on its own is what keeps me out of the food. But it helps. It all adds up. If I can do the footwork, shore up my dykes, it can help me from being swamped when I'm having a bad time and I can feel the clammy wet fingers of a food flood threatening at my toes and my tastebuds, when my mouth says, more, and I know it's not because I actually need more food. The thing is, those moments can come upon me so suddenly, when things seem to be going well, and suddenly taking an extra bite seems like a good idea.
Like last night. After choir practice a bunch of us go for a "postlude" at the pub across from the cathedral we're performing at on the weekend. The fact that I don't drink isn't much of a problem, I easily order my diet coke, and they nicely give me an extra large one with a slice of lime. The hard part is the pub grub, for this is a very traditional pub that specializes in deep fried everything--- with a side of mayo! I was so glad that the guy in our group that ordered those hand cut fries was sitting at the opposite end of a long table and that when he offered to send them down our way, there were two of us (one a man who I know is battling some weight and health issues) who were able to wave it back the other way. But it was that close. I could have had a few. Maybe. Or I would have had a few then ordered another basket "for the table". But I know damn well who would claim the lion's share. Or should I say "what" would claim its share. My disease, my gremlin, my freakin' starvin' inner child. Whatever lives within and always needs more.
Oh, I saw my optometrist this morning re: the floater, which I can't even see any more. He did all the stuff: dialation, photos, etc etc, and nothing seems amiss. Then he showed me retinal photos of his floaters. Awesome!
This morning I didn't write. I napped, I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher. I even bagged up the recycling for tonight. If that isn't a sign of procrastination, I don't know what is. Why do I even try opening the clam? Well, for the simple reason that I have to. If I don't want to slide into compulsive eating. It took me a long time to make that association, sure, my OA meetings are full of people who say that literature, meditation and prayer on a daily basis are what keeps them sane, but I really didn't believe it would work for me. Or I didn't believe that I could keep it up for a long period of time. After all, I was Miss Try Anything Once, but ask me to keep doing it, fuggeddaboutit.
But at some point I was tired of the craziness. Tired enough to try doing it differently at least. They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Then sanity is going, ok, maybe I should try doing it differently if I want my life to be different. I don't think I'm that unlike the majority of people who can be told something by people about a million times before it actually takes, and only really believe it when seeing and feeling it ourselves. Well, I've found a couple of things that I used to enjoy aren't so enjoyable, and in some cases, I now prefer the sane behviour/substance. I'm just do it because told it's good for me, the sane choice actually feels better.
For instance, some junk foods I rarely eat any more because they are so damn unsatisfying. Donuts are one of them. Like Louie Anderson says, you don't even taste that first one, it's chomp, chomp, and slurrph, you've inhaled it and aren't even sure you actually ate it. Not positive my teeth actually made contact on the way down. It just paved the way for the next one. Ones. All one doughnut does for me is set up the craving for more. On its own, its particularly unsatisfying. I'd much rather have an ounce of really dark chocolate and a nice cup of a very good decaf coffee or chai. It takes as long to eat, actually longer because the chocolate demands savouring, and I can stop with one.
It's kind of like that with the writing. Invariably, I will feel better after doing this. And that feeling better sets up the craving to repeat those good feelings. No, it's not the same as a good binge (an oxymoron if I ever heard one), but I'm starting to savour the long term benefits of emotional sanity. And I'm talking beyond the obvious pleasures of being able to fit into the same normal sized clothes year after year that I don't have to go to the fat people ghettos to buy.
Less obvious is the sheer pleasure of physical exercise. For a while was I just did it because 1) I was "skeerd" of dying and bad health and 2) it would help me lose weight faster. I really disliked it at first. Initially, all I could do was take a hour's walk at night (less people who would see me) with Fuzz before bed. Now, this has taken over five years, but I have to say that now exercise gives me a high. In addition, I'm now fit enough that physical challenges like moving house, walking a distance to explore someplace on a trip, sprinting through the airport to catch a connection, or setting up a campsite when the weather suddenly turns really hot won't throw me for the loop it used to.
Of course, none of this on its own is what keeps me out of the food. But it helps. It all adds up. If I can do the footwork, shore up my dykes, it can help me from being swamped when I'm having a bad time and I can feel the clammy wet fingers of a food flood threatening at my toes and my tastebuds, when my mouth says, more, and I know it's not because I actually need more food. The thing is, those moments can come upon me so suddenly, when things seem to be going well, and suddenly taking an extra bite seems like a good idea.
Like last night. After choir practice a bunch of us go for a "postlude" at the pub across from the cathedral we're performing at on the weekend. The fact that I don't drink isn't much of a problem, I easily order my diet coke, and they nicely give me an extra large one with a slice of lime. The hard part is the pub grub, for this is a very traditional pub that specializes in deep fried everything--- with a side of mayo! I was so glad that the guy in our group that ordered those hand cut fries was sitting at the opposite end of a long table and that when he offered to send them down our way, there were two of us (one a man who I know is battling some weight and health issues) who were able to wave it back the other way. But it was that close. I could have had a few. Maybe. Or I would have had a few then ordered another basket "for the table". But I know damn well who would claim the lion's share. Or should I say "what" would claim its share. My disease, my gremlin, my freakin' starvin' inner child. Whatever lives within and always needs more.
Oh, I saw my optometrist this morning re: the floater, which I can't even see any more. He did all the stuff: dialation, photos, etc etc, and nothing seems amiss. Then he showed me retinal photos of his floaters. Awesome!
23.1.08
Aging Sucks!
Well there's a newsflash for you... don't you just love all these boomers who act as if nobody ever got old before? I think it has something due to being hippies, delaying maturity, so it's such a shock when you start experiencing all the aches and pains of your parents.
Last night after going running with my faithful friends in a snowstorm I was feeling so strong, so like a green beret able to brave sleet and cold, so alive, so... smug. I loved running, and I hoped I could keep it up for many years. Maybe I could be one of those people still running in their seventies.
This morning I was staring at my computer screen in the very bright, sundrenched kitchen--- the storm of last night had turned into a very cold, white, sparkling bright morning. And what did I discover floating across my computer screen, no, not my screen, not my very dirty and scratched glasses, no... it was my eye. Rats. I have a floater. A tiny one, a mere speck, but there it was in the field of vision in my left eye, moving every time I moved my eye. Yes, no, maybe, yes, there it was again. And I panic. "STROKE! ANEURYISM! BLINDNESS! DETACHED RETINA! OH GOD HOW CAN I BE A BLIND PAINTER???"
All that stuff went through my brain in the space of oh, 10 seconds. Surf medical sites, google it, wiki it... ah, likely just another symptom of middle age. Oh great. Reminded again. Not a joy filled kid, but an occasionally joy filled middle aged woman. I started feeling creaky. I made an appointment with my optometrist just to check it out. Had another cup of coffee. Phoned Fuzz. He made comforting noises, said he had one a while back. He did??? Why didn't he say anything? Just didn't think to. He is so unangstful at being 51 it makes me feel sheepish, when it doesn't frustrate me completely at his unflappableness. That's him. God, I'm hungry. It's an hour to lunch. What's up with that?
Aw fuck it. I'm going to the gym. Enough retina gazing.
Last night after going running with my faithful friends in a snowstorm I was feeling so strong, so like a green beret able to brave sleet and cold, so alive, so... smug. I loved running, and I hoped I could keep it up for many years. Maybe I could be one of those people still running in their seventies.
This morning I was staring at my computer screen in the very bright, sundrenched kitchen--- the storm of last night had turned into a very cold, white, sparkling bright morning. And what did I discover floating across my computer screen, no, not my screen, not my very dirty and scratched glasses, no... it was my eye. Rats. I have a floater. A tiny one, a mere speck, but there it was in the field of vision in my left eye, moving every time I moved my eye. Yes, no, maybe, yes, there it was again. And I panic. "STROKE! ANEURYISM! BLINDNESS! DETACHED RETINA! OH GOD HOW CAN I BE A BLIND PAINTER???"
All that stuff went through my brain in the space of oh, 10 seconds. Surf medical sites, google it, wiki it... ah, likely just another symptom of middle age. Oh great. Reminded again. Not a joy filled kid, but an occasionally joy filled middle aged woman. I started feeling creaky. I made an appointment with my optometrist just to check it out. Had another cup of coffee. Phoned Fuzz. He made comforting noises, said he had one a while back. He did??? Why didn't he say anything? Just didn't think to. He is so unangstful at being 51 it makes me feel sheepish, when it doesn't frustrate me completely at his unflappableness. That's him. God, I'm hungry. It's an hour to lunch. What's up with that?
Aw fuck it. I'm going to the gym. Enough retina gazing.
21.1.08
When In Doubt, Run
I'm having a hard time writing today. I hadn't written since last week because the last few days have been pretty busy. Some of my friends in OA get up before dawn to do their writing and meditation. One of them, a teacher, actually complained this week that she had slept in to 7 am and so wasn't able to get her regular writing done. Well. As an inveterate night owl, I'm still struggling to come to at 8 am most mornings and am quite proud that I am now in bed before midnight most nights, so I'm not quite up with the dawn league yet. And when life demands that I show up before 9 am, the writing usually doesn't get done.
So, here I am, but it's like the hinge on my psyche has rusted shut and doesn't want to open. I think there's something in me that is screaming "I don't wanna, there's things in here that are gonna huuurrrrt!" I think that's my problem in a nutshell. Growing up I was told, keep it in, keep it in, don't show, don't share, it's not what ladies do, it's not what adults do, stop being so damn emotional, we don't want to see it. My mother would tell me I was too sensitive. So I learned how to keep it in, shut it down. What better to shut it down but with the food?
Writing the last two paragraphs has been like applying some oil to that hinge. Slowly the pandora's box of my brain opens a crack, and I catch a whiff of the sulfur of fear. I'm afraid. Tomorrow I go to a school where a friend is teaching to talk to her students about what it's like to be an artist. Wow, that brings up big issues, like: self confidence! I've got to spend some time today amassing some images from the web, like artists I really like and some drawing examples... And I have to go to the studio and get some materials to show them what I work with.
I think I also have to work my 12 step programme too, to deal with this fear, and my flippy ego. I have to take my ego out of this equation: I am going to this school not to talk about me, but about my experiences with art. Can you see the difference? These kids do not want to know about me, they want to know about what it's like being an artist. Taking my ego out of the equation defuses a lot of the fear. I'm a conduit, not the subject. I've got lots of really cool pictures I can use, and cool stuff I can show them. I think I'll pick up some vine charcoal today and a leather chamois that can be used for erasing. Maybe I can talk about creating the finished product starting from sketches. Sketchbooks! I'll take my sketchbooks, and some of my preparatory drawings for my final project. Now the juices are really starting to flow!!! Okay, now I'm feeling better. The whole thing starts to look do-able.
This stuff doesn't look like it should have anything to do with my eating. But it SO does, because so much of my eating is emotional! I had a dust up with the food, albeit a minor one, on Saturday. It was after another tiring pre-concert rehearsal with my choir. A lot of standing around while the technical issues of dealing with an unfamiliar performance venue got worked out. I had lunch with Fuzz and a couple of friends from the choir. At the end of the meal, something in my brain had decided it wasn't sated, that I have somehow been deprived. When Fuzz and I went to the health food store to pick up some steel cut oats for my world's best oatmeal, they had some of those baked "healthy" Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips on the sample table. Something in my prehensile brain (stem?) decided these were fair game. So I went back not two, not three, but four times to the table to sample all four varieties. I went so many times I'm surprised I didn't get the hairy eyeball from the clerk when we finally got to the cash. I felt bewildered and ashamed when I got home. And amazingly, still hungry. I grabbed a handful of baby carrots from the fridge, thinking maybe my hunger was because the lunch was a little light on veggies. The hunger stayed.
Finally, I took a nap with Fuzz. He was tired from work and fighting a bit of a cold, and it had felt way too early when I dragged myself out of bed early that morning to hurtle off in a snow squall to the church for the rehearsal. It was a delicious nap! One of those ones that make you feel a little guilty, but very refreshed. Then I gathered my gym clothes up and went for a workout. And that felt really good. Somewhere during the nap, my attitude switch got reset. And then, the workout really flipped it into a good zone. The food was quiet the rest of the day, and then yesterday it was fine. I'm not so good at this self care stuff, my first reaction when feeling like I need some comfort is to eat. The good thing, is when I discover that I have other options in the self-nurturing department, it's a new discovery. New discoveries in middle age are a good thing.
So, here I am, but it's like the hinge on my psyche has rusted shut and doesn't want to open. I think there's something in me that is screaming "I don't wanna, there's things in here that are gonna huuurrrrt!" I think that's my problem in a nutshell. Growing up I was told, keep it in, keep it in, don't show, don't share, it's not what ladies do, it's not what adults do, stop being so damn emotional, we don't want to see it. My mother would tell me I was too sensitive. So I learned how to keep it in, shut it down. What better to shut it down but with the food?
Writing the last two paragraphs has been like applying some oil to that hinge. Slowly the pandora's box of my brain opens a crack, and I catch a whiff of the sulfur of fear. I'm afraid. Tomorrow I go to a school where a friend is teaching to talk to her students about what it's like to be an artist. Wow, that brings up big issues, like: self confidence! I've got to spend some time today amassing some images from the web, like artists I really like and some drawing examples... And I have to go to the studio and get some materials to show them what I work with.
I think I also have to work my 12 step programme too, to deal with this fear, and my flippy ego. I have to take my ego out of this equation: I am going to this school not to talk about me, but about my experiences with art. Can you see the difference? These kids do not want to know about me, they want to know about what it's like being an artist. Taking my ego out of the equation defuses a lot of the fear. I'm a conduit, not the subject. I've got lots of really cool pictures I can use, and cool stuff I can show them. I think I'll pick up some vine charcoal today and a leather chamois that can be used for erasing. Maybe I can talk about creating the finished product starting from sketches. Sketchbooks! I'll take my sketchbooks, and some of my preparatory drawings for my final project. Now the juices are really starting to flow!!! Okay, now I'm feeling better. The whole thing starts to look do-able.
This stuff doesn't look like it should have anything to do with my eating. But it SO does, because so much of my eating is emotional! I had a dust up with the food, albeit a minor one, on Saturday. It was after another tiring pre-concert rehearsal with my choir. A lot of standing around while the technical issues of dealing with an unfamiliar performance venue got worked out. I had lunch with Fuzz and a couple of friends from the choir. At the end of the meal, something in my brain had decided it wasn't sated, that I have somehow been deprived. When Fuzz and I went to the health food store to pick up some steel cut oats for my world's best oatmeal, they had some of those baked "healthy" Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips on the sample table. Something in my prehensile brain (stem?) decided these were fair game. So I went back not two, not three, but four times to the table to sample all four varieties. I went so many times I'm surprised I didn't get the hairy eyeball from the clerk when we finally got to the cash. I felt bewildered and ashamed when I got home. And amazingly, still hungry. I grabbed a handful of baby carrots from the fridge, thinking maybe my hunger was because the lunch was a little light on veggies. The hunger stayed.
Finally, I took a nap with Fuzz. He was tired from work and fighting a bit of a cold, and it had felt way too early when I dragged myself out of bed early that morning to hurtle off in a snow squall to the church for the rehearsal. It was a delicious nap! One of those ones that make you feel a little guilty, but very refreshed. Then I gathered my gym clothes up and went for a workout. And that felt really good. Somewhere during the nap, my attitude switch got reset. And then, the workout really flipped it into a good zone. The food was quiet the rest of the day, and then yesterday it was fine. I'm not so good at this self care stuff, my first reaction when feeling like I need some comfort is to eat. The good thing, is when I discover that I have other options in the self-nurturing department, it's a new discovery. New discoveries in middle age are a good thing.
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