Posted By: mellers on
Friday, August 8th, 2008, 7:39 am
OK, so this might end up being a bit of a ramble, but I AM trying to marshal my thoughts in to some sort of coherent structure! Bear with me!
Also, for someone who is completely well adjusted and deals with their problems (and their life) in a healthy and productive way, it's also going to seem like "yeah - so what!". Well sadly, I'm not, and I don't, and this is quite a big issue for me and I'm HOPING a big step forward too.
BACKGROUND: I have issues with food, is the simple way of putting it. I was morbidly obese until 2 years ago when I started my journey to lose 8 stone and be healthy again. Having got to goal, I've struggled to maintain my weight, with the most catastrophic gain being on my recent holiday when I put on 18lbs in 2 weeks eating what I wanted.
I continually suffer from anxiety and depression (so much so that I am off work with it) and my home situation is turbulent to say the least. I live with a man who I'd rather NOT live with, but my only experience of living alone had me descending in to a serious psychological isolation which led me to be hospitalised for 5 weeks. I have also been suicidal about it my situation in the past.
THE CURRENT SITUATION: This constant weight gain however, has to stop. Not least of which because it has taken me weeks to lose 15 pounds of the 18lb gain, and will probably be another 2 weeks before I get back to goal. TWO weeks to put weight on and SEVEN to lose it again, is NOT a sensible way to continue to live the rest of my life, and frankly if I don't change this cycle of binge-loss soon, it's is the way the rest of my life WILL continue.
I have another two week holiday coming up a the end of August, when every fibre of my being is telling me that I want to, HAVE to, NEED to eat in the same 'holiday' way again. That would mean spending October and November losing it, just in time to put it all on again at Christmas. At the moment, just ONE afternoon party can have me putting on 4lbs in a week with my eating going overboard whenever I allow myself to relax just a little bit. Holidays just multiple my problem by 14.
I have a summer garden party (complete with all-you can-eat buffet) to contend with tomorrow. I'm really apprehensive about it and I know that this sort of help-yourself scenario is my downfall! I also don't do well in large crowds of people I don't know particularly well and I'm no good at small talk.
It's just not on.
THE SOLUTIONS WHICH DON'T GO ALL THE WAY: I've been asking around for help with regard to tactics to help me cope with the food both on holiday and at social gatherings. Everyone I have asked has been really kind coming up with PRACTICAL things I can do. You know the sort of thing:
*don't leave home hungry,
*choose wisely and healthily while I am there,
*limit myself to the amount I eat,
all of which are fab strategies. But none of these address my actual problem which is, despite being desperate to lose my holiday gain and get back to goal, and NOT make more MASSIVE gains, I actually WANT to eat all this food. I'm not stupid and I know eating it will make me put on weight, so why do I feel that I have to stuff my face? And more importantly how can overcome the problem?
THE REAL PROBLEM: It wasn't until last night that I realised what my problem actually is. I really WANT to stuff my face with bread, cake, cream, and naughty things to help me deal with my stress of being at this party.
It's the same on holiday. I feel that holidays should be a time of relaxation and enjoyment. As a sufferer of depression, I don't feel relaxed anywhere or at any time, especially on a holiday and don't get the same sense of escape that others do when being away from home. Sadly all my problems (my illness and the man I live with) come with me. The scenery is different but the problems are still the same. The only release I get from this is when I am eating. I want to feel relaxed on a holiday, Good heavens I have paid good money to be there I feel like I DESERVE to relax for god's sake.
I see now clearly for the first time, that eating has been my only constant and guaranteed way of distracting my brain from how awful my life is and letting me actually relax. To realx that is, like a normal person would relax in a bath or reading a magazine. For the 15 minutes that it generally takes me to consume a meal it's like I am in another world.
You may have experienced the same phenomenon when driving a regular journey each day. You get to your destination with absolutely no recollection of the journey itself. It's like that with me and eating. I can even start a meal with every intention of eating it consciously, but always seem to "lose" myself in the euphoria of the food part of the way through. I can get to the end of a plateful, with no recollection of how I ate it. Whether I shoveled the food in (starving prisoner style) ate with my mouth open, even (heaven forbid) made embarrassing social gaffes while eating it. Food, it seems, hypnotises me. It takes me away to a place where no other means of distraction, meditation and/or medication can do. It's like being given a 15 minute General Anaesthetic from the pain and hurt and emotional trauma of my daily grind of a life. I live from meal to meal as my only escape from that pain and suffering. It's now becoming clear to me why I was suicidal too.
I do have other distraction techniques which anxiety sufferers may know about. It's a technique that they teach you in hospital to help you cope with abnormally high anxiety. Sadly, over the years these have become less and less effective and even less and less tolerable in themselves.
I can no longer watch a TV programme for more than about half an hour without my brain going back to my awful life. I can't sit in a bath and let the bubbles soak the worries away, because the worries don't leave me. I can't even pick up a book these days, let alone let myself be spirited away in to the world of the author that I used to be, my brain won't let me go there any more. Slowly and steadily, my coping techniques for life are being slowly eroded and the one which remains, steady and true for me, anaethetising me against the pain of my life as it is, is food.
THE REAL SOLUTION: I need to make an attitude shift in my head that says I don't HAVE to be constantly eating to be OK. I need to STOP using food as a distraction and an aneasthetic, but more than that, in my current start of emotional pain, I need to find an effective replacement, otherwise to be constantly here in the midst of my pain and hurt 24 hours a day. Things will be unbearable and I will probably end up being suicidal again.
It's going to be hard though & it will go against the coping strategy I appear to have had my whole adult life for dealing with my background level of stress. I don't KNOW if I can do it, but awareness of the ACTUAL problem is the first step. I have had success recently in combating comfort eating for higher levels of stress (which is what is common among a lot of people). You know, you've had a bad day and want to comfort eat, or you have had a row with your partner, or someone shouted at you at work or something and you head for the biscuits. Until now I didn't realise that I was doing it daily just to cope with life and be normal and to make holidays normal too.
It's a big task.
Tags:
depression, eating, anxiety, lightbulb
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