After a few posts with no mention of my ED, I’m writing one about only that topic. If you follow me on instagram you may know I haven’t been doing very well lately, so as usual, I started posting less often and ultimately decided to take a break from my recovery account.
I’m the kind of person who finds it very hard to share her struggles. Some people like venting (nothing wrong with that) and talking about their problems, I’m just not like that. It’s not that I’m hiding anything or lying to you, I just don’t really feel like sharing anything at all when I’m not well, not until I find a solution.
I want you to know that I relapsed badly on my binge eating during this month. I had real binges and frecuent episodes of overeating. I went completely out of control, and that’s the problem. No matter how hard I tried, I just kept unconsciously trying to restrict. I kept trying to be in absolute control of my eating and my body. I kept checking if I had eaten too many carbs, compensating. Forbidding myself foods, only letting myself eat some kinds of them. So eventually all that resriction firebacked. And I ended up bingeing again. I kept cooking some delicious dishes that I love to other people, intending not to eat them, because of course I didn’t “deserve” them. Somehow in my twisted mind I just couldn’t take the risk of gaining weight because it meant I would be less worthy. Naturally I ended up bingeing on those foods, and hating myself for it. I felt like I was in an eternal diet, and that wasn’t the original plan.
Almost unconsciously, I started restricting my food again in order to compensate. And I ended up bingeing again. After lots of tears and “I’ll never do this again”s I figured something had to change. I decided that I neded a radical change of mindset. Instead of keeping my mind stuck in the “eating x amount of carbs and fat a day” I needed to switch to a different, healthier one.
I have to say, that when you’ve done so well for a long time (I had about 9 binge-free months, maybe more) relapsing really, really sucks. It makes you feel like you’re never really going to heal. Or that maybe it was all a dream and you eventually had to wake up. But the truth is that for as long as I didn’t find my answer, what really worked for me and healed my relationship with food and my body and I wasn’t getting anywhere.
So I started searching for answers. I’ve said before that intuitive eating didn’t work for me, and maybe I wasn’t ready (or maybe I wasn’t ready to let go of the “control” I had by then). But maybe this time it would. If I was going to do this thing, I had to do it well.
Someone recommended me to read the books Gennen Roth wrote about emotional and bigne eating. Since I live in Chile and I don’t have full access to buying all the eBooks I want, I picked the one that sounded the most appropiate “Breaking Free from Emotional Eating”. I crossed my fingers hoping it wasn’t bullshit. And it was not. In fact it’s being a great read, it has consistent arguments and it really makes you analyze the way you eat, the things that apparently don’t make sense (but that ultimately have a purpose) and a lot more. It’s really changing the way I behave and feel around food.
(Yes, this is my recommendation to you to read this book.)
From one day to another I started ignoring all the rules I had been self-imposing for so long. And well, the first days were CRAZY, I wanted to eat nothing but sweets and chocolate. It was like “woah I really want to have a lot of chocolate for my afternoon snack, ok let’s do it” or “I want to have lots of cereals for dinner, ok I’ll do it”. I started eating what I wanted BUT when I was hungry and until I was full (that is the hardest part). While during the first days all I wanted to do was eating all the things that were before forbidden to me as the days went by it started becoming easier and easier to listen to what my body really wanted.
I’m eating a lot more than before, yes. But this process has been really freeing from my restrictive and very punishing old mindset. I will probably gain weight (I have probably gained already), but it’s time I understand that choosing to be thin instead of being at peace with myself is a very sick decision. It’s time for me to grow-up and embrace who I am instead of wanting to change everything about me all the time.
It’s time to finally understand that I’m not becoming less-worthy of anything if I gain a few pounds and that I’m allowed to let my weight fluctuate like a “normal” person does.
I’ve said it a hundred times but it’s time to act like it: my self worth isn’t measured in numbers.
Pol
Pol Is Live ! 