Blindsided by the Down Slide

I read a great blog post the other day about how the game of Chutes & Ladders is like recovery: sometimes we slide downward but never back to the same place we started at.

In the game of recovery I was blindsided by a slide today and I don't know why. I was doing so good. I thought I was doing everything right. So how did I end up on a square with a chute on it?

Now I'm left feeling sick and the food so desperately wants to come out. I don't understand why people want me to keep all this food inside. Yes I know it's wrong to binge but once the food is in there how can you ask me to keep it inside? It's too much! my body needs help dealing with it.

I've eaten so much I feel sick to my stomach and if that's not enough the thought of how much and what I ate makes me down right nauseous.

-tears-

I don't know what to do. I want to recover! but I also really want to get this gross awful food out of me!

Dear Self. You are not hungry please stop eating!

but on a positive note I am not eating food I'm allergic to

Chips For Breakfast

I was out of town for a few days last week for some business meetings and I was lucky enough to have friends who let me stay with them. Staying with friends however means that you're not allowed to be on 'just' a business trip. On Friday morning, after a few hours sleep, I woke up slightly hungover. Due to poor planing, being allergic to dairy and the fact that it was not at my house left me with literally nothing to eat for breakfast, which is the most important meal of the day (especially if you're trying not to get or stay fat).

Given that I was running very short on time, my only option was to stop at the grocery store beside the train station on the way to my meeting. A perfect recipe for failure!

I was hungry, hung over and in a hurry - Not the best time to be making good food choices.

I found myself in the chip aisle, with blackberries and a sesame snap already in my basket, staring 63-ish grams of tasty uncontrollable chip consumption in the face (and once I've eaten a whole bag of chips, what's to keep me from eat . . . . . . . and into the downward spiral I go). To make it worse, have you ever read the contents on a bag of chips? It is really hard to find ones without dairy. But like I said, I was hungry, hung over and in a hurry, my self control was at an all time low!

Then I surprised myself by walking by the 'late night cheeseburger' flavoured doritos and putting down the 'cheddar cheese & sour cream' flavoured baked chips (yes I actually picked them up and held them in my hand). I picked up the (completely dairy free) ketchup flavoured baked chips and ate them in moderation on the train ride. I knew they would all be gone before the day was over but I took great comfort in the fact that I was not allergic to them (i.e. eating them would not cause me physical pain) and the entire large bag contained a comparable amount of fat to a single serve bag of regular chips.

Today I won despite setting myself up for failure.

I am proud of myself!

On the Record

For the record I went to see an MD about my condition yesterday and now it's officially part of my medical record. The thought of that makes me sick to my stomach. Now anyone who picks up my file has access to judge me.

Part of me heard her: she said that she was really proud of me for taking such steps to recover and that an eating disorder is nothing to be ashamed of, there is something physically wrong in my brain, the neurotransmitters don't fire correctly. In an attempt to make me feel better she also mentioned that I wouldn't criticize someone because they had cancer, which is true but I don't feel like an eating disorder is not comparable to cancer. It feels more like a cross bread of herpes and schizophrenia - you didn't purposely get it but it's embarrassing and fraught with social stigma. You can hide it from most people but once they know they will always treat you differently from that point on. You can treat the symptoms, reducing their likelihood and frequency but you'll never be truly cured.


The reason I finally saw a doctor is that I learned (via this Questionnaire) that my unexplained health problems (the one's that have taken me to six different doctors (of three different specialties) in the last 8 months) may be a result of my eating disorder. Moreover, some of the things and traits that I had just accepted about myself may also be a result of it. It's scary to think how sick I have made myself without having a clue - I knew I had a bad relationship with food but I didn't see it as a problem because look at our society - it's clear that many people have bad relationships with food. However, mine apparently goes beyond the 'normal' bad relationship with food.

I am actually hurting myself and that knowledge was enough to get me over my fear of talking to a doctor. I needed to know how much damage I have actually done.