I guess I’m more worried about my grandmother than I admit to being. Last night I messed up and binged, big time. Right off the bat, I don’t know why. Maybe it has nothing to do with my grandmother…maybe it has everything to do with my attempt to discover where this behavior comes from in the first place. Maybe I’m digging up feelings that have lain dormant for so long…maybe I’m not as emotionally healthy as I thought I was. Maybe I’m not ready to let go of my mother this year. There are so many reasons for losing control last night that I don’t even know where to start. And, even though I know I’m not alone…I feel incredibly alone and I’m really scared of losing control of whatever it is I think I have control of. This monster of compulsive eating hasn’t gone away at all, and I know that. I’ve just been able to live with it lurking in the corner. Maybe I need to go back to OA. Maybe I need to make getting better my entire focus for awhile. I envision my life consisting of exercise, making meal plans, going to church, reading books, being with people as much as possible, crying a lot, and becoming a person that I can be satisfied with. And I only want my life to consist of creativity and happiness. Right now I feel like such a failure and a fuck-up. I can put a dozen different acronyms and names to what I’m dealing with. ADD, dysthymia, compulsive eating, perfectionism, daddy-issues, PCOS, being an aesthetic eyesore, utter grief…I don’t see these things as diseases that excuse me from taking responsibility for myself, but I see these things as an explanation as to why I’ve never taken responsibility for myself. The light bulb goes on when I can name these things. Okay, so I have ADD…what can I do to live around that? Alright, so I have dysthymia, what are the warning signs and what I can do to prepare myself for it? Compulsive eating…what are my patterns and what can I do to avoid triggers? And so on and so forth.
It’s when all of this hits at once that I start my old thinking cycles. I fucked up. I’m diseased. I can’t do anything right. My family expects better of me. I’m not perfect. I’m a failure. Maybe I should give up now. I’m going to die alone. No one cares about me because I’m a failure. If only I were [fill in the blank] then I’d be wanted and popular and easy to love. And each of these thoughts spawns other cycles of thought until I’m so tangled up and upset that I don’t know what to do other than zone out in front of the T.V. and eat.
Do you see? I live in my head…this is my reality…and it’s uncomfortable and hard to ignore these cycles and live in the present. I’m successful off and on, but when things get hard, I withdraw into my mind. And this is the carousel I get on.
This time….however….this time I really am facing this beast by keeping this fucking journal. It’s public, yes, but that’s what I want. It’s a public confession, of sorts, like the way Christians used to do in the early days of the Church. Everyone can know my sins, and I don’t care. Know them. This is who I am. This is what I am dealing with. I’m not perfect and I know it, but it’s no excuse to opt out of living. And this is what I’m doing to hack away at my issues so that I can be the best person I can be. I refuse to hide from myself anymore and I’m making myself as vulnerable as I can. By virtue of being online, there is a sense of anonymity that keeps me from being vulnerable to the core, but at least it’s a start.
There is a lot of hurt in me, just like everyone else has hurt, and I’m the kind of person that, even though I’m passive, I can’t live with this for much longer before I feel that I’ll inflict some serious injury on my psyche. Maybe that sounds like psycho-babble, but it’s the truth. I have to DO SOMETHING.
The best part of all this angst that won’t go away is that it makes it pretty obvious to me that I need to invest myself in my spiritual life…which I haven’t been attentive to in over a year. And…I miss it. I miss confession, I miss prayer, I miss meditating on spiritual writings…I hate feeling so disconnected with that life because I see the value of those things.
So…there you go. I binged. I feel horrible that my grandma has Alzheimer’s and is in a home. I feel horrible that my family is going through difficult times. I feel horrible that I live inside my head and am not emotionally available for anyone. But, I’m doing what I can, and I’m glad that I haven’t quit!
I’m glad I got this stubborn streak from my grandma. I’m not going to let everything get me down. Life is good and I want to be there for it. Yeah! So…take that, Hopelessness and Despair!
7 responses so far ↓
treasach // April 26, 2007 at 7:13 am |
(((((((hugs)))))))
*me*
j // April 26, 2007 at 6:41 pm |
Yea, don’t despair!! I like how you ended that. Very positive!
“The best part of all this angst that won’t go away is that it makes it pretty obvious to me that I need to invest myself in my spiritual life…” I think this part is key. I know it is for me anyway. I think you’re trying so hard to do this on your own. This sounds sooo protestant but – are you asking God to help you? I don’t mean to sound like an OA proselyte, but there’s a reason the “higher power” plays such a huge role in everyone’s “recovery”. It’s weird, but I forget to ask God sometimes.
Also – it’s so easy to feel like we’re characterless weaklings lacking in any kind of willpower… but you know this isn’t the case. There’s a book that I was reading about this in (it was written about addiction from an orthodox perspective – an ex-addict himself) and the writer was saying that in “normal” people, their everyday type stresses are curbed with more normal, healthier outlets (because these things are ENOUGH to combat their stress in their lives; they get the proper amount of dopamine where needed. Not so for addicts). Basically, he was saying that their bodies respond better to stress. (this must be the reason that skinny people giving us dieting tips makes us so ticked off) For the addict, however, their bodies are very often times dopamine resistant (they’re not equipped for some reason or another, to handle regular stress, so they look for outside sources: food, cigarettes, alcohol etc. in order to produce the same results that the non-addicts come by naturally). Not that any of this is an excuse, but it’s some perspective… it was nice to hear.
.
The writer says something interesting tho, he says that an addict who fights the addiction is exerting a superhuman amount of willpower. I mean, we knew this, it was just nice to see it in print
mclargehuge // April 27, 2007 at 5:41 am |
tresach-aw. thanks!
j-i do forget that God is around. hehe. well…not hehe. it’s not funny…it’s jusst…well…yeah.
i really need to read that book you mentioned…it sounds really awesome. i mean, just really right on.
J // April 27, 2007 at 5:39 pm |
Um? OMG… I LOVE that ab icon you have. that is HILARIOUS. It totally caught me off guard… I found my eyes strolling in that direction and BAM! ABS! wow did I laugh. Those abs accost people.
And yea, you do need to read this book – after I finish it. Fr. N recommended it, but I’ve zero follow thru, so it’s only recently that I picked it up. I thought it would make me feel bad, but it’s actually pretty great.
mclargehuge // April 27, 2007 at 5:54 pm |
haha. it’s GERRY’S ABS!! i need to find a better piccie though…one that can include his head.
i totally want to steal your book when you’re done.
J // April 27, 2007 at 7:25 pm |
we dont need his head. Teeny tiny abs are funny enough. Maybe funnier w/o head.
mclargehuge // April 29, 2007 at 4:48 am |
haha! teeny abs are HYSTERICAL!