Category: Mental Health

SECURITY BLANKETS

I still live in fear the shit will hit the fan again. I’m finding it hard to let go of the fear someone will die, or my kids will get into trouble, or someone will become really ill, or I’ll lose my job, or I’ll be in a high-conflict situation, or we’ll have a financial disaster, or my marriage will fail, or any one of the other major stresses I’ve been struck with will knock me down again. And again. Despite the fact that so far in 2017, I have had nothing but positive news, I’m still fearful.

ARE YOU ON A DIET?

“Are you on a diet?”
I was 22 years old. I was not on a diet. I was not overweight. Yet…
It was Christmas Day and I was away from my family. Invited to a friend’s house for the day, I met a lovely Japanese couple. His English wasn’t the greatest and when I said I didn’t eat meat, he asked if I was on a diet. It was an innocent question – and his wife quickly jumped in to clarify. He was asking if I had dietary restrictions. I did. I was vegetarian.
Within a year I was also bulimic.

GET BACK ON THE BIKE

Oh man. I am Struggling today. Struggling with a capital S and so incredibly tempted to give up. Give up on ever finding any type of recovery. Give up on therapy and just accept binging, purging and restricting as my normal. I am my own worst enemy. I’ve learned all the keys and steps and lifestyle changes. The insanity remains. I know all the buzzwords and metaphors:

NURTURED

We’re born to be nurtured.
Unlike most of the animal kingdom, little humans begin life utterly dependent on their caregivers. In a perfect world, we’re raised by loving and caring parents supported by their whole community – it takes a village to raise a child. Perfection is a rare commodity.

FAILURE ISN’T A FEELING & FEELINGS AREN’T FACTS

Food tastes like failure.
I don’t savour beautiful textures and flavours. I never mindfully and sensuously nibble delicacies, inhaling aromas and luxuriating in the tantalising sensations on my tastebuds. When I eat, I scoff food down like a starving woman fighting a horde of ravenous dogs, scratching around for the last morsel on a carcass. Washed down with guilt and loathing and fear, and an overwhelming sense of failure – I’ve done it again. I’ve eaten food I didn’t want, in a manner I didn’t like. I’ve failed myself. Food tastes like failure. Day in and day out – I eat failure or I don’t eat at all.
And that failure is an emotion so powerful it’s almost tangible – I could reach out and touch it. Food tastes like failure and failure is a feeling.
But that’s a lie.