Link Sharing Time: Getting Started with HAES

Ragen Chastain from Dances with Fat gives us a brief intro to HAES in Transitioning from Dieting to Health at Every Size.

She says: "For those who choose HAES, our activities are chosen based on our prioritization of our health and the path that we choose to get there, and are focused around nurturing our bodies and increasing our odds for good health, rather than trying to make them a certain size or height/weight ratio."

HAES has been a large part of my ED recovery work for the past several years, or at least the core ideas of it. My exercise is still pretty erratic and I'm not healthy at my current size - yet - but I have been focusing mostly on my relationship with food so far. I don't binge any longer, but I still have high blood sugar (or insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome or whatever it's called this month). I still have to balance Intuitive Eating with the restrictions that are necessary for diabetes. It's kind of tough to separate yourself from the diet mentality when, essentially, you still have to diet. But, like everything else it's a process, and I'm working on it. My weight has stabilized; I haven't lost any weight, but I haven't continued to gain it either. I'm starting to learn how to care for myself with physical movement, learn how to exercise without punishing myself, without hurting myself. Maybe I'll lose some weight now; maybe I won't - either way, I'll be proud of myself for being able to run (a little) where I couldn't before, being able to climb stairs and ladders and still be able to breathe, and being able to hold my balance, move gracefully, be comfortable in the body I have NOW.

Backwards

I'm having conflict again. Confidence, self esteem, diet thoughts. I keep getting close to the place where I can take care of myself - eat right, get some exercise, control the blood sugar, get off the meds, whatever. But something always seems to throw me at the last moment, upsets my balance. Perhaps I'm throwing things in my own way as a delaying tactic, at least some of the time, though this time I think it was purely accidental.

I did so good through DragonCon! My confidence was high, I went out and mingled with friends at meetups, did the Disney fairy photo shoot and some other costumes, wore my sundresses and short skirts without shame, I even talked to strangers and told a bully to fuck off late one drunk night. I even came out of it with a couple of photos of me that I really love. I felt good. I felt pretty. I got con crud, but I was even ready to wait that out and get started on taking care of blood sugar as soon as I felt well again.

So one night I was looking around, Googling for costume ideas and accidentally wound up on a pretty hateful fat shaming site. I read around at some posts and comments in growing horror. I quit the internet for the night, watched the Hobbit and tried to think about happy things, spent the next morning looking at pictures of adorable animals, just in case. I have pushed it into an appropriate pit and locked the door behind me. But....

The evil, lying voice woke up. The thing inside that hates me and tortures that little girl in there. It's trying to make me feel ashamed and disgusted with myself again. It makes me want to try the dieting hamster wheel again.

I joined a Facebook group for people who are trying to lose weight for DragonCon and for costuming. Mostly I'm lurking, waiting to see if it's going to be too triggery for me. Right now, it probably is, until the liar goes back to sleep. There's a lot of talk about pounds lost and "being good" which of course implies that there's a "being bad" too. Someone posted a music video called "I'm Sorry I Gained Weight." I didn't watch it.

Now I keep coming back to the thoughts of looking gross. Spilling food. Being clean enough. Wondering if I smell bad. Being ashamed of burps and farts and acne. I'm a little afraid of getting hungry. It doesn't help that I'm still sick and coughing and snotting, so I can't breathe and I get exhausted after doing the simplest things. Like. A. Fatass.

I need comfort but I'm sick, and I feel like I'm a needy burden on top of everything else. I have spent two days trying to convince myself that B isn't mad at me for some unknown thing. But he still touches me, he kissed my neck when he came up behind me this morning, he has held me and told me that he loves me. It's okay. It's just the lying voice again.

It tells me that if I eat - and eat and eat and eat - that it will go away and I won't have to hear it lying anymore, but that's a lie too. If I eat and get sick and hurt it will just shout louder about what a pathetic loser I am, wielding the proof that I am an out of control fatty. I could hurt myself and then just listen to it laugh and laugh, just like those people on that disgusting website. Think about the curve of my belly, taut and hard and full of pain. Bulging under my too big t-shirts, the ones I think hide my body, the ones littered with old stains of old binges. Sloppy and sickening.

Fuck that.

I have no room for that kind of pain any longer. I think - no, IT thinks that I deserve this pain, but I DO NOT.

What did I say about that bully at DragonCon? "If you want to make me cry you're going to have to do better than that." Fuck you evil, lying voice, 'cause you just aren't good enough to get me anymore.

Back to the beginning - where did I start? "I am good enough, I am smart enough, and GODDAMMIT, PEOPLE LIKE ME!"

Bring it.

NEDA Walk Orlando 2014 - My Binge Eating Disorder Speech

This morning we had the Nat'l Eating Disorder walk for awareness at Lake Eola in Orlando Florida. We almost got rained out, but it passed quickly and turned out to be a beautiful morning.

We had a lovely singer and then I got to do my little speech, about 9 minutes or so, about Binge Eating Disorder. If the video will post - I'm about to find out - here it is!

I didn't get nervous until it was time to walk out on the stage, and I spend the first 7 minutes or so shifting from side to side. Feel free to scream "Be still!" at the video-me as often as you like. Afterward I pretty much just hugged the first person that I saw so that I wouldn't start crying.

Okay, here's the YouTube link. It's too big to load to Blogger... NEDA Walk Orlando 2014 Speech

Article Sharing Time!

I have a blog post in the works, but for today I found another article on Jezebel to share. The title gave me pause, but by the end of the article I was much less worried about it. Here's the link: "Losing Weight Won't Fill the Emptiness Inside. Only Cake Can Do That."

Please read the whole article in order to get past that awful title. Here's a section from the end:

"I don't blame Attenberg for this, or at least I really actively try not to, but it does make me sad.

I went through a lot of my life dealing with the aftermath of chronic dieting and childhood teasing, and it's those things that attempted to make me feel less than whole, less than human. It wasn't some mysterious "hole" inside of me that I was trying to stuff with Cheetos, it was put there by a society that's unrelenting when it comes to women's bodies. And it wasn't something that I ever tried to cram with snack packs; if anything, it was something that I tried to dig out and make thinner, make smaller, make gone.

We can't reframe the way society thinks and feels about weight overnight; there will always be cheering when a fat woman (or probably any woman who doesn't suffer from visible anorexia) loses weight. But we can fight damn hard for the right to be comfortable in and with our own bodies, even if it's really, really fucking hard."

Give Peace a Chance

This week I want to talk about giving this recovery stuff a chance. I know it seems so hard to believe that letting go is the way to find the path through. I know I didn't believe it myself, at first, and I suspect that doing it yourself is the only way to make yourself believe it. So, while these things I talk about may not have the kind of influence I meant when I began here, I can hope that it will help someone like me make a choice to try, at least.

When I started recovery, I read the books that you're supposed to read, I had tearful conversations with both my therapist and my nutritionist, and all of these sources assured me that someday I would be able to handle a meal without being tormented. Frankly, I thought that they were all full of crap, but I was out of energy, out of options, and just plain too tired to argue with anyone. I wrote in the journals for my feelings and my food, I talked - and talked, and talked, and talked. I read some more. I ate. I ate a lot, and I felt guilty and ashamed, and I wrote about it and I talked about it some more.

Time passed, I got heavier - yes, I'm going to admit that, I don't mind now, and those sources of mine, well, they did tell me that would happen. When that started to happen I wanted to quit. I didn't want to be fatter and despite all of the positive self-affirmations and loving myself work that I was doing... well, I might have learned to accept the body I have but I didn't especially LIKE it. In fact, I still kind of hated the idea that I wouldn't ever be that thin version of myself that I had always wanted.

Letting go of that idea was hard. I grieved for it for a while.

And I wrote about that too, of course. But it was getting to be a habit, all this thinking about feelings and writing about feelings and talking, talking, talking about feelings. And one day, at some point, I found myself thinking about those feelings BEFORE I ate the food. You know, instead of after. Not "Why did I just eat a half a bag of chips?" but "Why do I want to eat this bag of chips?"

That surprised me, and so I wrote about it in my food journal. I decided that I didn't actually want to eat a bag of chips. I just wanted to feel something different, even if it was just sick fullness - I don't know what, exactly, I wanted to feel or not feel any longer, because when you don't let yourself feel emotions it becomes hard to recognize them. (I'm getting better at that, I think.)

And I decided that if any feeling was better, that I could make a positive choice about what I wanted to feel next instead of letting the chips decide for me. So that first time I headed for the TV and queued up an episode of The Muppet Show. That's about the time I started working in all those other hobbies, like puzzles, and music, and reading. Did I need to feel something? Pick a mood and find an activity. I've already confessed to drawing in coloring books, so now I guess I'll 'fess up to dancing like a dork to disco and searching for naughty fan fiction on the internet.

It takes time, I'm not going to kid you about that. That Muppet Show episode was a long time ago, and here I still am, thinking and writing about things. But lately.... oh lately things have gotten interesting. Yes, I can deflect a binge (most of the time). Yes, I can stop when I'm full (most of the time). Yes, I can pass on dessert when I don't feel like it, and yes, sometimes I actually don't feel like it. But now it's almost like I'm discovering myself all over again, almost every day. What I need, what I like and even don't like. Lately I find myself having ordered this wonderful thing that I always used to love and crave, because now I'm allowed to have it any old time... and I don't really like it so much. I'm beginning to notice when things are too greasy, too heavy, too sweet. Just a couple of days ago I was about to call the local pizza place for a calzone, I love those so much! But then I thought better of it - they're so heavy and make me feel icky and sleepy. And I also found out that I love artichokes! Once upon a time I wouldn't have tried an artichoke if you paid me. It's like a whole new world.

So basically, no matter how many blog posts I do, no matter what I say, I doubt I can convince anyone that intuitive eating works. You pretty much have to experience it for yourself. All I can do is keep sharing what's happening to me and hope that it helps. I was in that place 15 or so months ago, where I'd tried everything, every diet, every gimmick, when I had nothing left... I gave it a chance, tried a little love instead of hate. I could have blown another year trying the same old thing, the thing that had not worked in 30 years, but - even though it was out of sheer exhaustion - I decided to give something new a chance. I think it's working; I like who I am again, I like my world again, and I'm still alive. I think that's better than another failed diet, for me...

My friend Cassie shared an article recently that I'd like to post here. Thanks, Cassie!
We'll Look Back and Laugh
As with most web articles, keep in mind that the comments are probably best not to be read. Some are positive, but some are filled with the usual "fat blaming" stuff that is harmful to us all. Enjoy!

Joyful Eating

So now I'm not dieting anymore, but that doesn't really mean I'm off the hook. In fact, I probably pay way more attention to eating now than I ever did, but in an entirely different way – a way that sustains me instead of degrading me. Here's how that works...

I started off with a food journal. I know, lots of “diets” recommend a food journal, but what the diet really wants is evidence for the food police: every bite, every calorie, every fat gram, and so on. But now I've been set free. I'm no longer a “diet criminal” and I can eat anything and everything that I want. I don't have to keep track of all those numbers, calories in, calories out. What I do have to keep track of is feelings. And the only number that matters now is the Hunger Scale

Yes, I still write down every bite that I eat. However, this is just for reference. Not once has my nutritionist ever called me out about any item, or told me that I was doing something bad. That's not what this journal is about. It isn't about judging me, it's about discovering me.

So, I write down the time and I think about where I am on the Hunger Scale. Am I a lot hungry, or just a little? How do I feel, physically? Grumbly in the tummy? Light-headed? Am I desperate to eat or just ready? I pick a number on the Scale based on those feelings and write it down.

And then, I think about how I feel emotionally. Am I angry, sad, lonely, bored, happy? Do I feel good about eating now or would I rather wait a little while? Have I waited too long to eat? (Mind you, this is NOT “I should have eaten sooner” - don't judge it, stuff happens.)

Then, as I eat, I try to do it slowly and mindfully. There are all kinds of suggestions around this. Sit down at a table. Set the mood with pleasant music, lighting, pretty tableware, and so on. Put your fork down in between bites. Don't distract yourself with TV or work or the computer or reading. If someone is with you, have a pleasant conversation (avoid arguments or tense subjects at meals). All of these things are hit and miss, depending on where I am and what's available at mealtimes. But what I can control is what happens when I take a bite. The idea is to savor each bite. Look at it, smell it, taste it on all the parts of my tongue and think about it – what is the flavor, what do I like about it, do I enjoy it? Is it hot, spicy, creamy, crunchy, chewy? Sometimes, especially the first bite, I like to close my eyes and just focus on the taste.

That is, I TRY to eat mindfully. I don't always remember, but when I do, I have found that the meal is more satisfying. It doesn't always keep me from eating too much, but sometimes it does. I try to take little breaks, at least once during the meal, to re-evaluate where I am now on the Hunger Scale. As I get near completion, I try to stop and think about whether or not I could be done, right here and now. Sometimes it's yes, but just as often it's no. That's okay – it's not about how much I eat, just that I think about what I'm doing and make a decision.

Now that I've been at this for a while, there are some additional things I get to consider, like balancing what I want vs. what's available and trying to create meals that hit at least several of my needs for satiety (more about that later). Because I'm also diabetic, I also have to consider when I eat and sugar content. (However, that is about health and well-being, not about judgment or “sugar is BAD, m'kay?”) Just now I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to consider the composition of my meals – am I getting enough protein, grains, and freggies? (Again, it's not about NOT having the cheeseburger, it's about whether I'll feel better later having it with a side of fries or a fruit cup instead. Sometimes I choose the fries, sometimes I choose the fruit cup. And sometimes I choose the turkey sandwich instead of the burger, but that's based on what I WANT, not on what I OUGHT to want.)

And finally, at the end of the meal I go back to my food journal and I think about where I am on the Hunger Scale. Could I still eat a little more? Am I satisfied, just full enough? Am I uncomfortably full, and if so, is it a little or a lot? Or am I stuffed, like a binge? Again, how do I feel physically? Am I nauseous? Indigestion? Fine? Still empty? Did eating this meal make me feel better, happier, sadder? Do I feel okay about what I ate or am I upset at any part of it? If I'm beating myself up about something, it's important to write it down and think about it. Am I angry or disappointed that I ate the ice cream? Am I feeling “good” because I had extra veggies? (Note, that's STILL judgment – food is not “good” or “bad” and I am not “good” or “bad” because I choose to eat it!) And again,I pick a number on the Scale based on those feelings and write it down.

I have now filled an entire looseleaf notebook and two full spiral journals of food for the past year-ish. I will still be doing food journals for some time to come, too. It's still hard sometimes to evaluate what I'm feeling. Sometimes I don't feel anything about my meal, and I don't know how to talk about that. But the journal is still surprisingly helpful. And here I'm going to go again – it's helpful to have someone else to go through that journal with me (in my case, my nutritionist). At our last appointment, she was able to notice something about my notes that I had not seen. I was beginning to be more and more critical of myself as well as what and how much I ate. It was subtle, and I couldn't see it, but someone else could. We talked it out, and now I'm guiding myself back on track. (So, as always, get a support team!)

Does this sound like a lot of work? Well, maybe at first, but it becomes natural soon enough, and the benefit is too great to give up. This is, after all, a process. I didn't develop my ED in one day or one month. And, it's harder to UNDO than it was to begin. I know I'm in this for the long haul, and I know that it's tough work, but I also know that I am totally worth it.

Aren't you?

Not the Doctor

Before adding to the not dieting any more conversation, I ought to say a couple of things... One, I am not a doctor, a nutritionist, or a therapist. I am not trying to give anyone medical or therapeutic advice. Honestly, I’m just here to share what I’m going through and hoping that it will touch other people in a way that is helpful. If my journey is at all familiar to you, I wholeheartedly encourage you to get professional assistance - your primary doctor, a therapist, or a nutrition counselor. I have all three, along with a select few other incredibly supportive people who form the core of my support team. Though I am the one who has to take the lead, this is not a journey I could take alone. I cannot beg you enough, whoever is out there, to get the support you need.

Two, this “no more diets” approach that I have taken did not come out of a vacuum. I did a lot of reading on my own before I got the courage to talk to my doctor and find a therapist, and a lot of reading since then. Do the research! No more diets is more than just a license to go binge myself into a coma. It isn’t a giving up of responsibility, it’s just a different kind of responsibility. There are still rules, but the rules are about paying attention to my body, to my needs, about being kind and respectful of my body, about treating it with love and health. It’s about abandoning fear and deprivation and torture.

There are many wonderful resources out there. Here are some of mine...

I read at least a few of Geneen Roth’s work just this past year: Breaking Free From Emotional Eating, Why Weight?, and When You Eat At the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair. 


Also, many, many years ago I read Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Resch, then read it again several months ago on the recommendation of my therapist. (I am about to read it again, now that I am moving on to the next level of my relationship with food.) Last week I read another Roth: Women Food and God (excellent). These are good ones to start with to introduce yourself to the idea of intuitive eating/no more diets. And there are many MORE Geneen Roth books out there, though several are pretty similar in content so check them out to see which ones move you.

Beginning intuitive eating is scary. Even though I had been working for a number of years on the general principle that anything was okay in moderation, I still had an internal list of “bad foods.” Foods that I would have to pay for with deprivation. Foods that would make me feel guilty for even thinking about. And beyond that, I had no concept of the idea that I really could eat as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted, and whatever I wanted. And initially - yeah, I gained weight. I was terrified and revolted and I thought my therapist and nutritionist and Geneen Roth and all of them were just... nuts.

And it takes so long! I’ve been doing this for about a year (minus a four month vacation from sanity for a family emergency this past winter), and I’m the fattest I have ever been in my life. I became the Queen of the Cheeseburger, and consort of the Ice Cream King. I haven’t been able to imagine that this process is helpful for my health...until recently.

See, there’s a bit of a progression with the intuitive eating thing. The books mentioned above helped me get used to the concept. My nutritionist gave me some assignments to do and the hunger scale (some of which can be found in Geneen Roth’s books and Intuitive Eating). I figured out what I really love about food and eating (I like crunchy texture, savory flavors, the smells of the aromatics, the tang of sauces) and found ways to make sure I ate stuff that I really loved instead of just stuffing myself with anything. For instance, I always choose a good cheeseburger place over fast food burgers. They are more satisfying and I don’t feel sick afterward. Same thing with taco joints.

I have to think about why I’m eating, about what hunger feels like, where hunger lives in my body (sometimes it’s just behind my eyeballs, kind of an itchy feeling in the sockets), what I’m doing while I’m eating. How did I feel before the meal? How did I feel while I was eating? How did I feel when I was done? And not just physically, but emotionally. What emotion makes me want to gorge on potato chips and what emotion calls for Ben & Jerry? And then I get to write it all down because this is a learning process. If I had a binge or just overate, I wrote it all up and I pulled it all out in front of my support team so they could help figure out not only why but maybe how I could deal with it in a different way next time. And, over time, it has begun to work.

In the past few weeks, things have changed. I know when I’m full. Sometimes I still eat past that point, but not very often. Less and less all the time. For the first time, just a couple of weeks ago... I can’t believe I can say this, but I FORGOT TO EAT. (I used to want to smack people who said that.) I don’t obsess about forbidden foods all the time anymore. My upswing in weight has stopped, stabilized. I am willingly adding salads or fruits or veggies to my meals, when I can. I try to avoid restaurants that only serve french fries as a side, because I don’t like the way they make me feel. Hello - I would rather eat a salad or fruit bowl than a plate of fries! (I still eat cheeseburgers, but less frequently, and only really, really good ones if it can be helped.) I did have a binge recently, but it was the first time in weeks, and it helped me discover a trigger that I haven’t dealt with yet.

Once I was on my way a bit with intuitive eating, my therapist recommended Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon. I’ve mentioned this briefly before. I still don’t know how I feel about it. I appreciate the idea that I don’t have to hate myself for being fat. I appreciate the idea that I don’t have to be thin to be worthy of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. As for being able to be healthy at my current size... well, we’ll see what happens. I know that I am not healthy right now. I’m not entirely convinced that I will be if I don’t eventually lose some weight. I don’t feel well, often. I can’t breathe well. I don’t move well. Things are starting to ache - back, knees, feet. I don’t need to be thin, heck, at my age I don’t even want to be thin; I can accept that I will always be some kind of fat. I just want to feel better.

In truth, I know that I will always have food issues, to some degree. Maybe I’ll forget to eat mindfully for a few days, maybe something big and upsetting will send me screaming for the ice cream aisle, maybe I’ll gain weight on a vacation and try to do “just a little dieting” to get it back off. Who knows? All I can do is keep moving forward and learning as much as I can.

P.S.: If you are interested, Health at Every Size is only $1.99 at the Amazon Kindle store right now...

The Wagon Only Goes in Circles

The problem with dieting is that it doesn't actually get you anywhere, at least not for long. On the wagon, off the wagon, whatever, it doesn't matter because the wagon isn't really going anywhere – it just goes round and round and round in the same circle. A few pounds up, a few pounds down; up, down, up, down, round and round and round she goes...

So the next hardest thing I had to do in recovery – after the “love yourself” thing, which I'm still working on – was to walk away from the wagon. Not just get off of The Diet Wagon (no problem, I've done that a thousand times) but turn my back on it and leave it behind.

Wait... No more diets? Ever? That's crazy talk! How am I supposed to lose weight?

Well, come to think of it, have you ever actually “lost weight” on all these diets you've been doing? I mean, really lost it, gone forever, never to be found again?

Ummm.... no. Haven't you noticed, I do weigh almost 300 pounds. Diets aren't helping me. They are, in fact, having exactly the opposite effect of what I intended. I'm fatter. Every year I just get fatter. Perhaps it's my fault. I'm a failure, weak. I can't stick to a diet.

Really? What about all that “love yourself” stuff you've been going on about? You're strong, capable, you have a successful marriage, you finished your degree, your employers love you because you work hard and exceed expectations. Your friends and loved ones know that they can count on you because you do what you say you will. Straight A student forever (except for that pesky Astrophysics thing). You get shit done, girl.

Yeah, but....

Nope. I ain't buying it. You could handle work, school, home, homework, and still went to the gym three times a week for two hours a day. What really happened?

What happened? Pain. Pain happened.
Sadness. Unbearable sadness. Hate. Anger. Fear. Emptiness.

Ah... emptiness. How do you fill the void? Dull the pain? Drown the anger the hate and the fear? What do you do, what have you always done?

I stuff it. I fill it up and cover it over with food. Until I can't feel it, until I can't move. Until I don't care.

Until you don't care about what?

About how I look. How people treat me. The things strangers say, like they have the right. About how far I still have to go, how fat I still am, how fat I'm gonna get. About how miserable I always feel, and hungry and frustrated and angry and scared. About how no matter how much weight I lose I'm never going to feel good again, I'm always going to be ugly and weird and frightened inside.

So dieting doesn't make you thin, and it doesn't make you happy. In fact, it makes things worse. It makes you FEEL worse. You keep getting on this wagon and going off full speed, trying to hang on, but then you fall off and you're still in the same damn place. It's like it always drops you off at the all-you-can-eat binge cafe, no matter how long you managed to hold on this time. No matter how far away you try to get on that wagon, you always come back.

Maybe it is time to turn your back on the wagon and face the real problem. Stay on your own two feet, keep your balance, and begin to deal with these things you are afraid of. Food doesn't do it. Diets don't do it. Only you can do it. So fuck the wagon... stand up and fight!

The Diet Hobby

I have been on some kind of diet or another for my whole life, it seems. So, unsurprisingly, I have been on a number of weight loss websites with forums and chat rooms and personal blog spaces. Most recently, and even still today, I am a member at Spark People, and I have a fairly long blog history there. I have been re-posting the Recovering Grace blogs at Spark People, but today I’m going to change that up and re-post an old entry of mine from Spark to here.

This one was written in January of 2010, over two years ago, not long before my depression and ED were ramping up again to becoming totally out of control. I had read a post from a friend, and it got me thinking about why I ever bothered to diet at all. This post was my response to that...

It just hit me when I read this - I've been going at this weight loss thing like a hobby, something I can pick up and put down at will, something that I have to do "right" if I'm going to do it at all. And because I have to over-analyze absolutely everything, I have been wondering WHY I do this hobby, and what causes me to pick it up and put it down with very little to show for the time and the effort and the money and the pain.

Now, bear with me, I'm just working some things out here...

I'm a people-pleaser, like my mother before me. So at first I assumed that I kept starting diets because that was what other people wanted me to do. If it talked like a diet, walked like a diet, and ate like a diet, then I must be on a diet (never mind what I did when no one was looking) and people would like me because I was doing what they wanted me to do. Then I kept failing at the diets, but at least it gave us something to talk about and I could always start another one. Fair enough, I suppose.

But...

I thought again, that there just wasn't something right about that. Maybe that was where I started, but what if it got even deeper and uglier than that? It's not just that I want my friends and family to like me, you see... I can't stand to think that anybody thinks badly of me. I want EVERYONE to like me. How's that for an unrealistic expectation? Lose 100 pounds in a year - sure, it ain't easy, but if you dedicate your entire existence to it, it could be done. But make yourself inoffensive to everyone on the planet? Not gonna happen.

So here I am, left with the thought that - just maybe - I have been dieting for nearly 30 years as a way of APOLOGIZING to the WORLD for being a fat cow. Not for me, not for my health, not for my future, not even for my husband or my mother. I'm dieting out of GUILT. If I can make myself miserable enough by depriving myself of food that I love and punish myself with exercise that I hate, maybe that will prove to the world that I'm sorry for being ugly. If I hate myself as much as I think everyone else does, maybe the world will hate me less.

So, I drop some weight and I'm getting the attention that I apparently need, and then it becomes old news and I don't get the buzz anymore from the ego-stroking of friends and family because the rest of the world still ignores me just like it always did, only I see it as loathing rather than indifference... and if total strangers still think I'm ugly after losing 30 or 50 or 60 pounds, then what's the point anyway, and I'll just go have a Happy Meal or something to feel better. Only I don't feel better and I haven't punished myself enough yet, so I'll jump off the wagon and say "Frak you!" to the world and gain back all of my weight plus another 20 just out of spite.

WTF? That doesn't sound like such a good idea...

Is that what I've been doing?

Am I really that shallow and needy?

So how's that working out for me?

And... I know the diet-speak pretty well by now: "I am dieting for myself this time! I just want to get healthy!"

Do I mean it this time? Do you believe me? Do *I* believe me?

Here we go....


So that was two years ago, and then some. For most of the next year, I really hung in there. I lost another 20 pounds, for a total of 50, and then.... I hit the emo wall. I had done my absolute best, I really felt good about the way I was living, the exercise I was doing, but once the depression and anxiety hit, I was helpless all over again.

I tried to get back there again, and then again, and then again. Every other week or so I would “recommit” myself to being healthy. But the emo stuff - the hate, the pain, the misuse of food - I couldn’t just decide to not do that anymore and wait for it to go away. It doesn’t just go away by itself, you have to MAKE it go away, you have to learn to care and to stand up and to fight back. You have to do the work first.

I don’t diet anymore. I’m too busy working.

Hopeless?

I wrote my very first journal entry for therapy just one year ago, on May 27th. I was so full of self-hatred that I could barely move. I spent days just lying on the couch, intermittently sleeping or crying. I got up and pretended to be okay if I absolutely had to - I went in to work a couple of times a week, I managed a Mother’s Day outing, got drunk on my birthday...

I had been dieting fairly successfully for over two years, but once again it was all falling apart. The weight was creeping back up, I couldn’t get interested in counting calories or going back to the gym. It all seemed so useless. And unfair. Besides, no matter what I did or how much weight I lost I was still so ugly, and stupid, and selfish. What did it matter anyway? What did *I* matter, anyway?

And so I go to this therapist and she wants me to talk about myself - no, not just that, to WRITE about myself, about my stupid, selfish feelings. I’m supposed to take a look at these bad things I say to myself and take them back, replace them with things that are good about me.

I had no faith that it would work. But I am a people-pleaser, and I do what I’m told. I wrote the first entry, and the next, and the next, and soon the words were flowing every day and I wanted to write in this journal, I NEEDED to write, to get it out. Sometimes these thoughts are like poison and you have to suck it out, spit them out on the page and take a good hard look at them so that you can heal.

So... the following entry is me, a year ago. How strange and long ago it seems.

Journal Entry #1

I am embarrassed to even keep a journal of this. I don't think that I even like myself enough to sit here and have a conversation with me, and especially not about food, or eating. I hate eating, I hate food, and I hate me.

But I don't want to.

First day of therapy today. Mostly I spilled my guts, said all of the stuff that no one, single person has ever known. I cried a lot. I hate that too. I guess I've gotten soft in my old age, because it's gotten harder NOT to cry in front of other people now.

We set goals:

• Breathe
• Move
• Practice Driving
• Eat (5-6 small meals per day)
• Write

I am a mess. I don't think that I created this mess alone, but I certainly helped. Now the mess is too damn big to clean up all alone. Fortunately, I am not alone. At least there's that.

I'm fat. I'm plain. I'm boring. I'm needy. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm mean. I'm weak. I'm empty. I'm selfish.

I'm smart. I'm funny. I love. I'm a friend. I'm a writer. I'm an auntie. I am loved. I am not alone.

(5/27/2011)

“You think you deserve this pain, but you don’t.”

Big Enough to Absorb the Pain

I have an eating disorder.

I’m a binger. I do not purge, or exercise it off, or take laxatives; I do not simply overeat. I binge.

I've been on diets, I've been on all of them, even the one you're just waiting to recommend to me. I’ve done the blood type diet, the menstrual cycle diet, the one where you drink shakes, the one where you eat carrots and celery and cottage cheese, I’ve done low-fat, low-carb, low-cal, low flavor. I did the Atkins diet when it was still just the Meat Diet. I have been on “not-diets” - the “healthy lifestyle” that would break me free from the dieting life forever. I know the lingo, I know what I'm supposed to say, and do, and feel. This time, I can do it! This time, it's about being healthy!

Diets do not work, at least not for me. I have dieted for over 30 years. I have lost and lost and lost many pounds, over and over; and in between, I binge.

I binge when I'm depressed, no surprise. I binge in order to not feel the things that I ought not to feel: sadness, anger, humiliation. But.... I also binge in order to not feel the things that I don't DESERVE to feel: joy, love, pride. I don't need anyone to tell me that I am embarrassing and ugly, that I should not be seen in public, that I don't deserve respect or love, and that everyone is allowed to hate me because I'm disgusting. I am unattractive. I am unfuckable. I know that. I believe it my very soul. (So shut the hell up already.)

I binge so that I don't have to feel... anything. Neither the humiliation that I deserve or the pride that I do not. Neither your hate or my own.

Food is a brilliant master, really, bringing both the pleasure and the pain. I can withhold it, be “good” and stick to the diet – but then I start to feel good about myself, maybe a little pride? Happiness? Oh no, I am still fat and unworthy, and damned if I won't prove it. Or maybe I'm just angry, maybe some jerk called me a fatty at the grocery store even after I've just lost 25 pounds and been to the gym three days already this week, or maybe life just sucks. But I don't have to feel that crap anyway. Not any of it.

Oh, and I know that I'm going to do it, I walk into it willingly, because at first it's so good, so soothing, so tasty and satisfying. I know that the guilt and the shame are ahead, and that's okay too, because at least I deserve that. Even when I hit that first level of fullness, I know I'm going to keep going, because a little guilt and shame is nothing at all and I deserve so much more, I deserve all the pain I can get. So I eat until I'm really full, and it's uncomfortable, and I'm humiliated, but that's good too. Just keep going. Finally I get so full that it actually does hurt, a little, and I'm stunned and disgusted with myself, and there I am, finished at last. But it isn't finished, because half an hour later the pain really hits and I'm sick and I want to throw up but I can't and I won't because this, this, this is what I wanted when I started because now I feel NOTHING. The physical pain kills it all and I'm riding high on a numb bubble and for now, just for a while, maybe an hour or so, I don't feel hate or shame or disgust or sadness or joy because there's only room for pain. And that I can handle.

I have become as large as I need to be to hold all of the pain inside.

What happens when I don't want to hold on to it anymore?