It's been too long . . . .

I haven't blogged or journaled about this in over a year and a half. That may be the problem. I get less vigilant and think I am fine, so I stop taking measures to prevent bingeing episodes in the future. The past couple of months have not been good ones. The last few weeks, especially. I have found myself bingeing more and more. This week alone, I have eaten so much food. I know what my trigger was this week. My husband was out of town and I am not good alone. Some trips, I am fine and others, not so much. I have come to realize that food is like alcohol to me. I can't stop at a small order of fries or one slice of pizza. (Don't even get me started on pizza . . . MAJOR trigger food. I want to overeat just thinking about it). But now my husband is back and I still just want to eat. I'm doing things that make me more likely to engage in bingeing behaviors. I'm not eating breakfast, I'm not planning my meals, and I'm not working out. All of those factors lead to hunger and guilt and lots of desires to eat. I seem to have lost my will to talk myself out of a binge lately. I have to start being more vigilant about my food. It really is like being an alcoholic. I have to know my triggers and know what situations and decisions make me more likely to binge. Maybe going back to blogging will help. Right now, I am just eating my emotions.

Alone

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time alone. I got used to it. I had to. My mom was usually gone with my stepdad and my sister so I was the only one left in the house. There were times when I would be alone for days. It's hard to know how I felt about this. I don't think I let myself think about it. All I know is that my household consisted of two conditions: utter quiet when I was alone and complete chaos and a LOT of yelling when my mom and stepdad were home. When they were home, I lashed out at them. I started arguments with them. I avoided them as much as possible. I was so angry, mostly at my mother. She was my mother and she was leaving me to fend for myself more times than not. When I was alone, I was numb to everything. I numbed myself by watching a lot of tv and of course, I ate. I ate a lot. We also had problems with money. So when there was food in the house, it meant we were okay. It meant we weren't going to starve and it meant I was taken care of. Food didn't leave you. Food didn't abandon you. Food didn't yell at you or tell you that you were such a horrible person that your own mom didn't want to be around you. (That came from my stepfather.)

Fast forward to my adult years and I still don't like to be alone. This week without Boy Wonder has been really rough. I still feel like that angry kid who's furious at her mother for abandoning her. Does that make sense? I haven't even been able to talk to him in two days because of the time difference. He hasn't been able to catch me. So then I get furious at him for not calling me at the right times. I feel abandoned and I feel scared and I feel alone. I also feel stupid because I'm twenty-seven years old and I still have the emotions of a thirteen year old. This may be because I never dealt with them before. So for the past two days, I've been doing what I did back then. I have been numbing myself with food. I've been numbing myself in front of the tv. I haven't had the energy to get up and exercise or do anything. If I could have blown off all my clients today, I would have. All I wanted to do was lay in Boy Wonder's bed and cry and sleep. Oh, and eat. Sounds heavenly. Or not.

Last night, I was scared that someone would break into Boy Wonder's house. It was the middle of the night and I woke up when I heard a strange sound. It didn't matter that the doors were locked. I just thought there was someone in the house. It reminded me of the time when I was alone as a child and I had that same thought. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and thinking I heard someone trying to get into my house. I remember being terrified and wishing that I had someone there to protect me.

I need to learn to forgive my mistakes and acknowledge my successes. Okay, my mistake was that I ate about 10,000 calories in two days (that's a rough estimate). My success was that I felt like taking out my anger on Boy Wonder, but I didn't. I wanted to send him a sarcastic email or leave an angry voicemail on his cell so that he would hear it the minute he got back in the country. But I didn't. Six months ago, I probably would have. This is what therapy does.

The book that I just finished reading says "Compulsive eating is the cast, not the wound." That is so profound and so true. Until I acknowledge all the feelings I have tried to stuff with eating, I will never get it under control.

"Normal" Eating

I am reading yet another book on the subject of eating disorders. Boy Wonder said we should have our own self-help section at the house when we move in together. This book was recommended by our couple's therapist. Yes, we are in couple's counseling. Whatever. Anyway, the title of the book is When Food is Love. It's a very good book so far. Right now, I'm at the part where the author is suggesting that you should pretty much eat whatever you want. Novel idea, huh? Sure, just eat what I want when I want. Is she kidding? I am a total all or nothing kind of girl (as most people with eating disorders are). So if I crave pizza for breakfast, I should just eat it. Of course the author also says to eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Therein lies the problem. Whenever Boy Wonder and I order pizza, he will eat a respectable two pieces. But before he knows it, I've inhaled just about the entire pizza (that is what I like to call a trigger food). Where is my internal mechanism that tells me when I'm full? Broken. I'm not sure I ever had one to begin with.

So you can see why the thought of eating whatever I want whenever I want would terrify me. Think about what that would do to my waistline. My entire life (no lie) is spent obsessing about food. I am constantly thinking about all the foods I want to eat, but can't. Or all the foods I want to gorge myself on later. I barely get done with one meal before I'm thinking about what I'm going to eat for my next one. But the thought of being able to eat the way the author is talking about feels me with this unbelievable sense of freedom. I would love to be like that. I admire the hell out of people like that. I would love to have two slices of pizza or a cheeseburger and fries simply because I'm craving it. Maybe I would actually take the time to taste the food because I don't do that so much now.

But if I do that, I never stop there. I just start mentally obsessing about how many calories I just ate and I start thinking about how fat I am and I will never lose weight eating this way. Then I think that I've already blown it, so what the hell? Might as well eat the whole damn pizza. Or get a double quarter pounder at McDonald's instead of a cheeseburger. I can't even really enjoy dinner with my friends or family because I am constantly thinking about what I'm going to eat. Or kicking myself for what I just ate. It never stops. So exhausting.

I hope I don't sound like I'm whining too much. This is just what goes on in my brain 24/7. Welcome to my world.

Battling the Scale

The scale has always been my archnemesis. My kryptonite, if you will. I depend on the scale to tell me if I am thin enough. The only problem is that the numbers are never low enough. I remember when I was losing weight a couple years ago. I had a goal weight. One that seemed reasonable enough when I set it. However, when I reached my goal weight I realized it was not enough. So I decided to lose just five more pounds. And then I decided on five more . . . and so on. I stepped on that damn scale like clockwork every Sunday morning, after using the bathroom and after my morning exercise routine. I'm embarrassed to say now that it held me hostage. The weeks that the numbers went down, I was giddy with power. It was an amazing sense of control. The weeks that the scale stayed exactly where it was filled me with a sense of failure. I would immediately think of all the ways I could further restrict my calories that week or think of all the extra ways I could fit exercise into my day. I was obsessed with it.

I have decided to escape from my battle with the scale. No longer will I depend on those damn numbers to tell me whether I'm thin or fat. I don't want to know what I weigh ever again. Maybe this sounds drastic to some of you reading this right now. To me, it sounds like a necessary step. My own personal scale was thrown away months ago. However, Boy Wonder still had a scale. So with his permission, I decided on another drastic move. What does one do to their worst enemy? They kill it. So I took a hammer and pretty much destroyed the scale. At least, I destroyed it as much as I could. Surprisingly, those things are rather sturdy. But there was something very satisfying about swinging a hammer and destroying the thing that has kept me hostage for years. I loved it. It's gone now. Thank goodness. Boy Wonder took pictures of the whole thing. Maybe I'll post them at a later time.

The whole time I was doing it, I could hear Ed's voice in my ear. He was telling me that I would never know I was thin now. How can I know when I've reached my goal if I don't know what my number is at? Well I know what Ed's goal number is and I'm done trying to reach it. Done, done, done.

To eat or not to eat

Ed did not want me to eat today.

I was sitting on the couch this morning with Boy Wonder and we were watching our shows that we had TIVO'd throughout the week. There was Kitchen Nightmares and House. I was with my boyfriend and I was watching TV shows that I loved. I was also starving. I could hear my stomach growling. The only thing I could think about was food. I thought about the cereal and the fruit and the eggs that I had brought to my boyfriend's house for this very occasion. I mean, it's not as if I can eat Poptarts every day for breakfast like he can. Boy Wonder was worried, I know. He woke up a couple hours after I did and asked if I had eaten breakfast. I said no. He then asked if I was hungry. I should've said no. But dammit, I was actually honest. A half hour later he asked if he could make me something. He never offers to make me breakfast. An hour later, he asks me why I haven't eaten breakfast. I tell hm I forgot. An excuse that he promptly dismisses as rubbish. How can I explain to him that my entire thought process for the last three hours had been about food? I had an internal debate going on in my head. I'll give you a sample.

Me: I'm so hungry. I should make me some cereal, at least.
Ed: Think about all that food you ate last night. You're never going to lose weight this way.
Me: If I don't eat now, I'll just eat even more later.
Ed: No you won't. I won't let you. You'll pick at your lunch. You won't eat much dinner. You will go to bed hungry. And then you will feel great for going to bed hungry.
Me: That doesn't sound like a very fun day.
Ed: Who said being thin was fun? You want Boy Wonder to love you, don't you?
Me: He loves me anyway. He wants me to eat.
Ed. Ha. He'll love you even more if you drop 50 pounds. If you go into that kitchen, you will regret it.
Me: Okay, you're right.
Ed: I know.


Ed did not want me to eat today.

Goodbye Ed

For a long time, I have been suffering from something that I haven't talked a lot about. Not a lot of my friends know about it. None of my family knows. There is a select group of people that I have chosen to share this information with and now, I am about to share it with the entire blogging community.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a love/hate relationship with food. I can't ever remember a time when I had a healthy relationship with food. My weight has increased and declined and increased again. Okay, I'm just going to spit it out. I have an eating disorder. There, I said it. Or wrote it rather. And nothing terrible happened, right? I would consider myself a binge eater. I binge on huge amounts of food on a regular basis. I eat and I eat and I eat until I just want to throw up. No, I've never purged. But I've thought about it. And wished I had the willpower to do it. Isn't that sick?

Here's the problem. A few years ago I lost a lot of weight. But the way I was doing it was not healthy. I see that now. I restricted my calories to less than 1,000. I exercised anywhere from 2-3 hours a day, 5-7 days a week. I was at the gym so much the trainers knew me and my workouts made them tired. Then something happened. Yes, a boy. I went through a bad breakup and a severe depression. I don't think a lot of people realize how bad it was. This was my fault, of course. I ate and I ate and I ate some more. I know that some of you out there are probably thinking I'm just being a drama queen. Doesn't everyone eat junk food and go overboard every now and then? I'm sure they do. What I know is that the amount of food I eat can be huge sometimes. I have been known to go to Taco Bell and KFC and Wendy's, all in one meal. I'm not going to bore you with the details of exactly what I ate. Some of them are a blur anyway.

I am at a point where I realize I have a serious problem. My boyfriend, who I refer to as Boy Wonder, sometimes has to forcibly take food away from me so that I will stop eating it. Poor thing, I don't think he knows what to do with me. I have been eating healthy all week. I have a couple of problems though. When I'm averaging 1200 calories a day, I think that's too much. Today, I had a tiny piece of a grilled cheese sandwich. I literally thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest. I know I was close to a panic attack. Why, you ask? Because I started thinking how many calories were in that tiny piece of sandwich. I started thinking about al the butter and the bread and the fatty cheese (instead of the fat free I normally get) and I was in a panic. I didn't know whether to starve myself for the rest of the day or binge. What do you think I did? I binged, naturally. Trigger food, I guess. I only went to two places today: Arby's and Burger King. I'm feeling very sick and very fat today.

Here's where the title of my blog comes in. I read a book that is amazing. It's called "Life without Ed: How one woman declared independance from her eating disorder." In this book, the author (Jenni) is taught to view her eating disorder as a person instead of a condition. Ed stands for eating disorder, by the way. I think it's really hard to explain to other people how this works. But it is like I have this voice inside my head, constantly telling me I'm not good enough. Ed is always comparing how thin I am to other women (even when I was at my thinnest, it wasn't good enough for him). Ed wants me to eat the whole cake instead of just a piece because I'm always going to be fat anyway, so why not? Ed is controlling and manipulative and a liar. He is basically an abusive boyfriend that I need desperately to get away from. But I can't because Ed is all I've ever known. I don't even know if I'm making any sense, but I hope so.

Today, I realized I have a very low support system. A lot of that is my fault, I know. I'm not good at asking for help (just talk to my boyfriend about that). I'm even worse at telling people when there is something genuinely wrong with me. I am exactly like my mother. I put on a happy face and pretend everything is fine. But I realized today that I can't do that anymore. No, I won't do it anymore. Today I realized I don't have a lot of people to call if I need help. I needed someone to call to so that I wouldn't binge. But Boy Wonder was out of town. And I didn't want to bother any of my friends. I wanted to start this blog so that I have a place where I can share my thoughts and feelings regarding my recovery from binge eating. Hopefully, having a place where I can vent a little will help.