Author: lafbatblog

Understanding Time Perception: Age vs. Mindfulness

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I don’t know about you, but I find that time does 2 very different things lately. Each day seems to last forever. But then, a week is gone before I even know it. A month, a year, goes even faster. Is it an effect of age? Is it an effect of mindfulness?

If it’s my age, it’s because I am getting older and have more to remember. I just can’t keep up with everything that happened a day ago. I make my to do list and check it off as I go, so I know I’ve done things. I can look around and see that I’ve done things like start seeds, water my plants, clean the house. While I’m doing them, they seem to last forever, though. Cleaning up the kitchen seems to be taking an hour, but I look at the clock and see that I only took 10 minutes. Binge watching TV seems to be fleeting, but then I look up and it has been hours, and I can’t remember what I watched. Is that because the TV isn’t as engaging as it once was? Am I just checking out and not paying attention because it isn’t important? I am usually crocheting while I watch, so maybe I’m paying more attention to the yarn and hook than the show.

Of course, if it’s mindfulness, it’s not something I’ve ever heard or read of in respect to mindfulness. I know you focus on the present, not the past or the future. Is that why the past and future seem so intangible and rapid? the present so long and lengthy timewise in comparison? I try to be mindful because I find it helps with my stress and anxiety. If I’m not reliving the mistake I made 3 weeks ago, I am healthier and happier. If I’m not worried about getting tasks done at work, I am more productive and more proficient. In both cases, the past and future seem to fly by and not linger, while the present is all there is.

I think I’ve decided I’m feeling a combination of the 2. Rarely is something all one thing or another. I think it much more likely for things to blend into a combination, like red and white make pink. Different amounts of red or white will give you a different value of pink. I think age and mindfulness do the same. Pale pink is my focus on the present versus the focus on past or future. Dark pink is the fact that I just have so much to remember now that it is hard to hold all of the past and future equally in place. It isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it seems to be making me more secure and content with my life. Healthier. Happier. I can plan. I can track. I just don’t focus on the time that has gone or is coming. I have no real control over time. Only my perception of it. So, I think I’ll stick with my mindful focus on the present and my not worry about my age causing me to have less attention for the past and future.

Gardening Your Mind: Tips for Emotional Well-Being

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Have you ever noticed that the worse your mind makes you feel the worse your body feels, too?

I’ve been fighting a bout of depression for the last few months. Still managed to go to work and take care of myself, but just didn’t really care about anything or anyone. Nothing felt good. Didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone. And the longer I stayed down, the worse I felt physically. Like I’d used up all my money and there was nothing left to pay for anything at all. I finally started to feel better, and wouldn’t you know it, I became physically too ill to work. It was a drag, like an albatross around my neck to finally be in a better place mentally, but have my body say “Oh no you don’t!”

But, I did get over it (mostly). I went from feeling trapped in a cage made of my sick body to being able to venture out and get things done. I still have a symptom. A weird one. My mouth hurts. No sores. No cavities. No burns. It just hurts all the time. So, I’ve come to believe my psychatrist is right. My mental state is affecting my body. I am still concerned about things. Can we afford groceries this week? Will we pay all the utilities? What else can people do to ruin this country and make it harder to live in?

So, I’ve decided it’s time to let it go. Picture blowing the seeds from a dandelion. Each seed under its fluffy parachute a care that I cannot do a thing about. Money problems? Puff — there go several seeds. The puff is accepting that no one is hiring an over educated, too old, fat, and mentally ill woman, so all I can do is do the best I can to pay things. Let the rest go on the wind with the seeds. I can’t control what others do. Some will always use others to make themselves richer, without regard to the others they are hurting. Some will be bullies that no one can stand up to. Some will take away things other than money to make themselves more important and powerful. Blow! Blow! Blow! There go the bullies and greedy people. I can’t change them. I shouldn’t let them take up room in my mind like dandelions taking over my garden. The things in my garden, I can affect. I can pull up the weeds in my space. I can address a bully in front of me. I can be more frugal and stretch my money farther. I can blow harder and the dandelion seeds will go farther away, to where they cannot grow in my garden. Blow your seeds away. Letting them go will help your garden flourish. You’ll be happier and healthier. Remember radical acceptance and circle of control. Those are how you blow the weeds away from your garden. Those tools will help you thrive in your own, personal garden, decorated with flowers and herbs of your choice, not someone else’s.

Celebrating Small Victories: A Personal Journey

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I keep seeing that I should be celebrating all of my victories, no matter how small or insignificant. But what makes something a victory? Should it be only your opinion? Should it matter to others? Should it have a physical manifestation? Is behavior or emotion enough?

My sister just received an award for being an excellent corrections officer. She deserved it. She does just about everything from training new officers to crunching data to evaluate the performance of the jail. She was recognized for all of her hard work at the state-wide level. She got a trophy. They had her speak at a banquet. That is definitely a victory. But she will tell you that she didn’t want it. In fact, she sees it as a problem; believing that people will expect more of her because of it. So, in her book, it is not a victory, but a problem. She has 2 children that will be her contribution to the future, too.

Do I have any victories? Nothing so tangible. I managed to get to work and get my job done even though I’m not sleeping more than 2-3 hours a night. I’ve kept off 120 lbs. that I lost. I wrote a new training manual for my job that my boss said is good. I’m learning Spanish. I’m learning to code in Java. I have kept my sourdough starter alive and well (it’s name is Fred) for nearly a year, now. I don’t think about killing myself as much as I used to. I guess those could be victories. But, I see them as insignificant to put it mildly. No children or contributions to the future.

Getting to work? What choice to I have? I have to earn money. And there must be something wrong with me if I can’t sleep without sleeping pills.

Keeping off the weight? So what? I need to lose another 130 lbs. to stop being considered obese. If I were doing it well, I’d have kept losing weight.

Writing the manual? Learning Spanish and Java? Just things I do to pass time and keep from getting lost in my mind. Plus, as my sister pointed out, the boss may want me to write the manual so he can replace me easily.

The sourdough, I guess, is an accomplishment. I do manage to make bread every week.

Not feeling like dying all the time? I’ve been through so much therapy and I’m on medicine. If I can’t control that with all this help, I’m kind of hopeless.

No children or impact on the future. That goes without saying since I have no children and work as a receptionist. Who will care about or miss me when I’m gone?

But then again, I am doing those things. I chose to live my life my way. I am keeping myself going. I think that sometimes I am far too hard on myself. I learned to minimize everything I do as a child. It was never as good as anything my mother could do or did. I still hear her voice, even though she’s been gone for a few years. I know now that she was trying to make herself feel better and more accomplished.

I have to stay in Wise Mind. Balance my logic and my emotions. In both areas, I have positive and negative. I am hard on myself, but I also know that I am strong and resilient and came through a lot of abuse. Logically, I know that I am functioning as a successful adult, even as I think that if I can do it, anyone can, and they can do it better. I know that I do things well. I am praised and complimented on how well I do things. I just have a hard time giving myself internal validation and accepting external validation. I find myself thinking that when someone says I’ve done well, they’re lying to be polite. My therapist pointed out that I was actually being quite arrogant when I did that. I’ve learned to stop denying and telling them why they are wrong and simply say thank you. I regularly write and draw a Wise Mind graphic organizer in my journal. It helps me see what I really am doing. I can see where my brain is trying to lead me astray and where an objective observer would say I am doing well.

I guess I do have some victories to celebrate. Even if some of them are natural to me as blooming is to a flower. Not every flower can do everything. Some smell good. Some produce delicious fruit. Some look beautiful. Each has a victory in its own way. So do people.

Managing Emotional Tiredness: Tips for a Dull Day at Work

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Well, I’m having one of those days where I just seem to be stuck in the mud. Can’t get anywhere. I’ve already done everything I am supposed to do today at work. I have 4 more hours. It feels like the mud is drying. And this is about as exciting as watching mud dry.

I know that according to DBT, I should be mindful and pay attention to the little things that are actually happening at this moment in this place. Participate in what is happening. The problem with those is that no one is doing anything except sitting there gazing into their computers (I work in a tutoring center in a library). I did try writing letters to my pen pals. I got all but 1 finished. I’m too tired emotionally to write another good letter, so I’m letting that wait. I can’t exactly get out a deck of cards and play some poker with the tutors. Not very professional. So, any ideas? The firewall on the school’s network is such that you can’t go to any “fun” sites. So no computer games. I could nosh on some popcorn. That could provide some diversion, but I have to be careful not to eat too much. Trying to lose weight. So, I’ve decided to write. To get my mind unstuck and get the flotsam out of it.

So, participate. I’ll write this entry. I’ll have my popcorn. Then, if nothing else has come up, I’ll take a nap under the desk, just kidding. With my luck I’d get caught.

I’m trying not to get stuck within my head. It’s not a good place for me to go. I start beating myself up like Godzilla unleashing on Tokyo. I know I don’t deserve to be treated badly, not even by my own mind, but I do it any way. I was taught to see myself as less than human. Ugly. Stupid. Disgusting. Useless. A waste of space. My parents did a very good job of that, and no one at school really helped undo it. They all thought I was weird. Now, people tell me I am intimidating, so I don’t get a lot of positive feedback these days, either.

Why am I intimidating? I guess because I don’t let people get close until I know they are safe. I don’t want to be hurt any more, so I keep them at a distance until I decide if they can be trusted. I guess I also expect others to do their jobs and do them well, so that intimidates them, too. I have high standards, and not everyone meets them. Don’t get me wrong. I deliberately try not to judge anyone else. I know how much that hurts.

OK. This afternoon: popcorn, letter writing, thinking about myself in positive terms, and no beating myself up. I think that will be a full afternoon.

Finding Peace Amidst Inner Demons

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I am sitting here at work. I’ve done my entire to do list. I’ve spent 1 1/2 hours on my professional development (a marketing course). and I still have over 2hours to be here. I am getting a nice migraine going, so I might leave early. Time will tell.

I guess I could try to find someone to talk to, but that really doesn’t appeal to me. I like my peace and quiet, I just need something to be doing to keep my demons occupied so they don’t wreak havoc in my mind. I try not to talk to my demons. They get too conceited and think that they control the whole show, not me. As to talking to a coworker, there really isn’t anyone to talk to. I do have coworkers, but they are far from me within the building, and I can’t leave my desk. And they can’t leave their’s. So, that is not an option.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes your demons are the only ones who seem to understand you? They know you better than anyone else ever did or will. They are your constant companions, good times and bad. Sometimes they come up with ways to comfort me. Of course, their ideas will cause problems (spending or eating too much to fill the emptiness). But, they are the ones always there for me to debate my actions. Generally, when they are in favor of something, I know it’s something that I probably shouldn’t do. They are helpful in that way, whether they mean to be or not. Comforting to know them that well and be able to depend on them, even if they don’t really want to help.

Sometimes late at night, my demons will listen to my doubts and fears that I can’t express to anyone else. These are the times they are actually not judgemental. They become my valued friends at those times. They wrap around me like carmel on an apple. Warm. Soft. Sweet. They let me talk it all out. I try to use wise mind and pros and cons at those times. Try not to punish myself or consider myself harshly. My own thoughts can wound me far more than my demons do. It’s like I’m being dragged through a fencerow made of blackberry bushes and barbed wire. The thorns grasping chunks of my skin and leaving bloody furrows behind, where the bad thoughts and memories take root and grow so well. My demons don’t hurt me like that. I’ve learned to appreciate them and tolerate them.

So, here I sit at my desk. Only my demons for company. At the moment, they are campaigning for a run to the vending machine or a splurge on Etsy. Neither would be good for me, but neither would hurt. My mind on the other hand is telling me that I am useless and unwanted and how could anyone want to have anything to do with a damaged old woman like me. So, I need to quiet all the demons and my mind. Or is my mind the head demon? Does it have the little demons distract me while it works on doing the real damage? I think this is the case. That means I need to stop listening to Lorie Ann (that’s my name for my really mean, cruel self talk). To get her quiet and to move on to a better place, I am writing this to get her out of my head. I find that writing gives me relief. The words flow out of my mind. Onto the paper. Leaving my mind clean and clear. I can evaluate and dispute what my mind has been telling me. The writing gives me power over the self hatred and loathing. Once I have written in out, I can let it go.

For today, I won’t listen to my demons or Lorie Ann. I won’t let myself hurt myself. I am stronger and better than that. So are you.

On the verge

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Spring is progressing with fits and starts. One day it is so hot we need air conditioning, then the next we need a light jacket. The trees are nearly completely leafed out. I have roses, clematis, and irises blooming. Birds are singing for territory all day long. And here I am, stuck at work and in life.

I have been allowing myself to fall to the wayside. I’ve not been walking my laps, exercising, or eating healthy. I still can’t seem to sleep at night. I’ve spent my time lying in bed worrying about everything and everyone else. Trying to figure out how to fix problems for everyone else; ignoring my own. I have no energy or drive lately.

All I’ve wanting to do is hide on my bed, in the dark, and wish the world would pass me by. Now granted, I am a champion introvert. Taking a position as ahermit in a deep, dark forest and living as the old witch of the woods has a definite attraction. I’d have a cottage made of stone, surrounded by a cottage garden of flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits. A little mountain brook giggling along side the cottage, in a clearing surrounded by the protection of the huge old oaks. Squirrels playing tag. Rabbits and deer peeking out from among the trees. Butterflies and bees visiting the flowers. Bats swooping by as the owl hoots at night, under glistening stars and silvery moon. My cat and dog would be my only roommates. I’d have tons of books and yarn and embroidery materials. I would have music playing all the time. No one to argue with or try to please. Splendid solitude. I’d only venture out once a month or so for supplies. Alas, that is never to be.

So, what do I do with my life as it is? How do I find the peace and contentment I am so sorely lacking these days?

I think I have to begin by shifting my focus. I can’t keep putting myself under pressure to fix things for other people. They are adults. They should take care of themselves. I can’t, and shouldn’t, do it for them. Accept things as they are. Let go of my expectations and goals for these other people. I have no more right to control them than they have to control me. I can be there for them. Listen. Encourage. Assist within reason. Not tell them how to fix everything and try to do it for them.

I also need to stop worrying about letting everyone else down through my actions and existence. If I am to find serenity, I have to look within, not without. Accept that I have a nice life. I’ll never be important to the world. I’ll not leave much of an impact when I go. I don’t have children to leave a legacy. I’m like the vast majority of people. I’ve been good to some people, but not so many that I’ll leave a void when I’m gone. They will move on. They will find someone else to process the data, explain the rules, craft them gifts, bake them goodies, and care about them. I’m not rich. I never will be. In this world, only the rich seem to really matter. People care more about what the rich are doing than being a good friend or loving family member.

I need to approach my life like a rose. There are millions of roses. They are all special and unique in their own way. They have different colors, shapes, scents, sizes. Each one is special to the bees that visit it; the people that see/smell it. They bloom their best when it is their time, not before or after. They don’t try to hurry or hesitate to bloom. They do it when they are ready. Each rose has purpose. Each rose exists as itself, whole, complete, and perfect in its imperfections. Each rose is important, even as there are so many of them that it seems no single rose matters. It matters to the ones who experience it, but they replace it with the next year’s rose. Such is the way of life.

I am good at helping the people I actually encounter at work. I help them succeed in their lives. My friends and family love the things I make for them. I try to remember to smile at everyone I pass. I am smart and good at explaining things to people, helping them do their jobs and learn in classes. I have come a long way. I am past the bloom of youth, but I’m not a ripe rose hip, yet. I am me. And I am good at it.

Has it really been this long?

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I haven’t been taking care of myself for the past few months. I’ve neglected my health, my hobbies, my mind. I was working extra to make up for the fact that my boss left for greener pastures. I was trying to do everything for everyone else. I let all those people talk me into trying to get the promotion to my boss’s position. I didn’t listen to myself. I didn’t take care of myself.

I’ve been sleeping very poorly. Terrible nightmares about being powerless and unable to effect or change anything. Not being able to turn on lights in a room. Not being able to walk. Not being able to talk or answer others. That’s when I did sleep. I’d wake up feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. Other nights, I just laid there awake while my mind ran sprints. Did I get everthing done? Was everyone happy with my performance? What would people think if I didn’t apply for the job, followed by what would people think if I didn’t get the job? Then once a week, usually Saturday, I’d crash and sleep for 12 or more hours. I’d still feel like I couldn’t get enough rest.

I’d been binge eating, again. I gained 20 pounds. I just couldn’t seem to stop myself. Even though it would hurt after I ate so much. In fact, it’s been hurting whenever I eat. No matter what I eat or how much or how little. Frequent visits to the bathroom to empty my stomach. None of that helping me feel better.

I am behind on my crafting for Christmas gifts. Mostly because when I came home from work, all I did was take a shower, eat supper, then go to bed. I was totally worn out from work. Too many people to deal with. My introverted soul just couldn’t take all the people I was dealing with. It exhausted me emotionally and mentally.

This past weekend, I realized what I was doing to myself. I realized my body was telling me that I didn’t want the promotion. I was trying to make everyone else happy and not thinking about me. So, what did I do?

I began getting up and walking, for the first time since December. I’ve begun planning my meals and not eating everything in sight. I went to bed early and slept without nightmares. It was like I finally listened to myself. And when I did, I began to feel better.

I didn’t get the promotion. And I’m actually glad that I didn’t. I’d be lying if I said that I’m not worried about the reactions of all the people who pushed me to apply for the promotion. I am. I fear they will see me as incompetent and defective. However, I’ve been returning to my DBT work. I’m journaling, again. Writing my emotions instead of eating them. I hadn’t written in my journal since December. That is not like me. I was trying to be what everyone else wanted, not myself. I didn’t even comprehend what I was doing to myself. I ignored all the warnings of my nightmares and exhaustion.

I sat down Sunday, and did some serious writing. I worked on getting back into wise mind. Balancing my logic and emotions. If feels so much better to be back in balance. Walking in the mornings and eating less is making my body feel so much better.

It is spring. Normally, I would have been out in my garden. Weeding, planting, preparing. I didn’t do those things until last weekend. I feel like the flowers on my hellebores. My head was down. Now, I’m blooming again. I’m facing the sun. Taking care of myself. I’ve realized that I am being reborn like the plants in my garden. My leaves are stretching out into the spring sun. Bathing in the spring rain. I’m nurturing myself as I nurture my garden. I am expressing my own beauty and growth. I am not a violet trying to be a rose, now. I am just my quiet little violet self. I am pretty. I am lovely. I am worthy of appreciation, just the way I am.

Christmas is back!

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I know I am not the only one who has trouble being merry and jolly this time of year. If you’re a real person with a real family, chances are that getting everyone together creates a ton of stress. Getting the right gift. Eating enough of grandma’s cooking to make her happy but not be a gluttonous pig. Disagreements over politics. Old family arguments flaring up. Of course, you may be like me. I never see my family for Christmas. It is always a lonely day with just my husband, which, if you pay attention to media, is totally unnatural and should make me feel unloved, unwanted, unsuccessful, and suicidal. So, you can’t win either way.

If you are trying to lose or not gain weight during the holidays, you feel another ton or so of pressure. All the yummy goodies that you know will taste good. People showing love by making and giving you baked goods. Your weight loss group telling you not to eat any of it if you want to be a good dieter. The judgement of said group if you do eat Christmas treats. The worry that you will give in and binge yourself out of your smaller pants and back into your tent dress.

Everything has to be pretty, festive, and meaningful. You have to be careful not to offend people. Wishing the wrong person the wrong holiday greeting can lead to an argument, hurt feelings, and being excluded from the group. Of course, there is a whole segment offended if you don’t call it the holiday they celebrate. Keeping all that straight is exhausting in itself.

So, what does all of this have to do with self worth and weight loss? Quite a bit.

If you are a stress eater, there are plenty of triggers around. Family arguments. Strangers fighting you for a gift/parking place/last ham on the shelf. Fear of offending people by saying the wrong thing. Your support group telling you that you cannot indulge in any way or you have failed. And there are many, many opportunities to give in and try to stuff that anxiety into silence.

If you are prone to binge eating, what a target rich environment!!! Everyone is making and giving cookies. Fancy dinners to get together. Parties with lots of appetizers. Stores are full of treats. Huge festive meals. You don’t even have to sneak around or hide the food to binge this time of year.

Feel the pressure for everything to be perfect? Decorated with coordinating presents, trees, wreaths, figurines, and lights (a la Martha Stewart)? Getting everyone the exact thing they truly want? Being happy and cheerful the whole time? Doing parties and activities non-stop? Actually enjoying being with your family? Yep, your self worth is taking a hit from the myth of Christmas or the holiday of your choice.

I have learned to accept that I do feel pressure for everything to be perfect andthe anxiety of getting everything right is going to drive me to binge. I can’t pretend that they aren’t there. They are a part of me. My self worth and ability to deal with all the stress and tempations are integral to me. They help make me who I am. To deny them is to deny myself and pretend that I am someone I am not. I have to accept them, deal with them, and live. To help myself control the urges to binge, I spend a lot of time journaling, doing behavioral chain analysis, coping ahead, and keeping myself busy with baking/crafts/writing. You may well ask how I can bake a great deal and not eat it all. Well, that is strangely tied to my lack of self worth. I honestly believe that everything I make is no good, no matter how many people tell me they love it and that they want more of it. That belief keeps me from wanting to eat the cookies, fudge, cakes, and bread that I make before I give it away. The behavioral chain analysis, coping ahead, and writing take place in my journal. You can find free work sheets for those things if you just Google or use Pinterest. I have a bunch of things like this saved on my Pinterest therapy board for when I need a nudge to do the work. I have also learned to understand that the “perfect holiday” doesn’t really exist. No one can do everything perfectly and make everyone happy and be happy, too. It’s crazy to expect anyone to do that. Companies make a lot of money by convincing people that it is achievable, making them feel less than if they don’t reach that elusive goal. When I start feeling less than because of the lack of family, perfect decorations, parties, and such, I remind myself that it is a giant house of Christmas cards, ready to fall apart at the slightest examination, so I shouldn’t feel bad because I can’t or don’t do all of those things.

This is my happy Christmas day. I sleep late. I make a good breakfast for my husband and myself. I spend the morning crocheting or cross stitching until time to start cooking. I cook a full meal (turkey, ham, home made rolls, red velvet cheese cake, green beans, corn, deviled eggs, and such). I know it’s a lot for 2 people, but we are OK with left overs for a week after the big day. I read and craft throughout the day. The Christmas tree lights are twinking on my miniature tree. My amaryllis, poinsettias, paper whites, and hyacinths are blooming. I think it is wonderful and restful. It’s not the huge family gathering with all the perfectly coordinated decorations and such, but it is the right thing for me. Once I accepted that, my self worth began to recover. I do wonder what it would be like to participate in the “perfect holiday,” but I know it doesn’t mean I’m any less if I don’t have that.

So, take care of yourself. Remember your reality is better than the make believe “perfect holiday” because it is yours. If you want to eat some cookies, do it. You’ll end up eating less if you give in and satisfy the urge rather than trying to eat around it. Use your journal to get the thoughts out of your head and examine them. Deal with them and let them go. Everyone can make it through the holidays in a good place. Take your own Christmas cards and build your own holiday.

The comfort of old demons

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I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how I pressure myself to lose weight, and what a spectacular failure it has been. I’m still not gaining, but I’m not losing either. I know I should be happy to be down 5 sizes and have all my bloodwork come back looking great. I know it is an achievement to not regain the 140 lbs. with reinforcements. But, I’m still not satisfied, happy, or proud of myself. I keep thinking myself to death.

I shouldn’t eat real food, because everyone at WW is finding 0 point fake foods and eating those instead. A goodly portion of every WW meeting is concerned with finding low points alternatives for regular food. It’s odd. In WW commercials they tout eating real food while you lose weight. At a meeting, if you are eating regular food, everyone shakes their heads at you and you can feel the judgment rolling off of them in waves. The conviction of the group is that no one can eat normal food and be thin or healthy. You have to eat food lacking flavor and texture. It’s the old saying, if it tastes good, spit it out. The mantra of dieters everywhere.

What have I learned from this? First of all, people seem to want to focus on things that will make them unhappy, like punishing themselves will win them a place in heaven. Giving up food you like is the only way to be thin (and of course, only thin people matter or have worth). Second, they would all claim they are not doing this. They would say they are eating regular food. I’m sorry, using a wrap made out of egg whites instead of slices of bread is not eating regular food. I don’t like sitting there watching them hurt themselves in an attempt to earn sainthood (thinness). And third, I cannot be happy participating in the artificial food feast.

Several of the members say that getting a huge quantity of food is more important than the food tasting good. I can’t go along with that. I have been a binge eater all of my life. But, now, I’m learning to fill the emptiness with other things (reading, crafts, gardening, even, gasp/horror, baking). I find it sad that a person would prefer to just shovel the stuff in, no matter what it tastes like. How is that enjoying food? It makes me sad. People trying to fill the space inside with something, anything, because the emptiness hurts. We’ve been taught that eating will make the pain go away, but it doesn’t. It actually makes more pain and misery.

I am working to learn that sadness and emptiness and loneliness are not going to kill me. If I pay attention to my life, I will find positives to experience and the negatives will pass. It was a hard lesson to learn; that eating doesn’t get rid of the bad thoughts and feelings. I still backslide from time to time. The comfort of the old demons is sometimes impossible to resist. I’m learning not to punish myself for embracing the old demons. Once upon a time, they were my friends and protectors. I’ve outgrown them. I am my own protector now. The old demons aren’t gone, though. They never really go away. You just spend less and less time with them as you become stronger and heal.

I know it is hard to change well established habits. Even when they only hurt you. To develop new strategies and plans, you have to invest time and energy. You have to learn new ways. You have to be patient and gentle with yourself. You have to acknowledge the old demons and how they once helped you. You have to accept and believe that things have changed. You have to know that you can protect yourself and take good care of yourself. Your old demons will try to win you back. That’s what they do. It’s OK to admit they are there and to visit them from time to time. The trick is to not let them tell you what to do or how to live. You can get there. You can let go of the old and find the new.

Why do I do it to myself?

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I find that like a lot of others, I self sabotage. I know I’m doing it, even as I do it. I know it will make me feel even more miserable and unhappy than I do to start. Why do I keep doing it? Could it be old habits die hard? Could it be better the devil you know? Could it be laziness? Could it be old behavior that was helpful at one point but isn’t any more? All of the above? How do you know? And how do you improve your performance?

So. The cause. Once upon a time, when my family used food for a reward and a means to control my behavior, eating a lot whenever I got the opportunity or to make myself feel loved, made sense in a twisted kind of way. I was young. I thought food equaled love, power, and security. That happens when your parents will hide food and limit your food intake because you’re too fat at the age of 5. Newsflash, I’ve seen pictures of myself. I wasn’t fat. I didn’t become fat until my teenage years. So, their major control over my food and the way my parents and grandparents used it as a reward, gave me serious food issues. In my mind, the more food you got the better you were. So, I learned to binge whenever the opportunity presented itself. That habit has remained in my personality until today. I learned the lesson very well.

I also put on weight as a defense mechanism. I thought if I were fat enough, my grandfather would stop touching me in ways that he shouldn’t. He didn’t stop, but I kept trying to distance myself from him with food.

Between those 2 things, I did gain a lot of weight. I made it up to 400 lbs. The use of food for comfort, reward, and defense is hard wired into my brain. So, why didn’t I change it when I realized it was not a good thing to do? I think it was a combination of laziness, comfort, and stubborness. It was easier to keep doing what I had always done. I knew that being fat meant not being respected or expected to be very much as a person. Lower expectations are considerably easier to meet. Fear of failure kept me from trying to do better. It was easier to be a no body.

I was slowly trying to kill myself with food. I didn’t understand that until I finally found a therapist who actually saw me as a person, not a fat person. I finally learned to use my DBT skills. I am teaching myself CBT skills. I get up early to walk to feel better. Journal to get the thoughts out of my head so that I can see, accept, and let go of my thoughts and feelings. Check my planner to help me cope ahead with whatever is coming in the day ahead. Check in with my DBT diary to remind myself to keep using the skills I learned. Take my medicine. Get myself together.

I have finally stopped trying to kill myself with food. I do still binge, but now a binge is 3 donuts or 2 snack cakes. It used to be an entire quarter sheet cake and 5 cheeseburgers and a couple large fries and a large coke. I actually like life now. I’m like the butterfly spreading my wings. I spent most of my life as a caterpillar: eating huge amounts of food, hiding from predators. Learning the new skills and approach to life were pupating.

I’m getting myself to a better place every day. I work to be fitter. I am getting smaller. I rejoined WW. I apply my DBT skills. I use mindfulness and acceptance to make it through every day. I cope ahead to handle food stress and problems I know are coming. I accept that I cannot control everything, so I must learn to let it all go. Let my feelings pass and know they are not facts, they are impressions. Eat to be healthy, not to comfort or control. My wings are enjoying the feeling of the sun. I’m not hiding under a leaf any more.