I woke up yesterday frantic, bolted out of bed and grabbed up my journal. Something had to be done. I needed a plan.
The day before I’d stepped on the scale at the Y. Twenty pounds had crept back on. I nearly fainted with horror and despair. Not again, please. Not again.
So, I sat at my table at 4:30 in the morning, trying to figure it out, trying to find one thread I could pull out of that frayed panic to gather my Will and my focus back together. Because, I reasoned, if I can’t stop the binging and the food frenzies, then how can I stop myself from compulsively spending? If I can’t control my spending, I’ll never be able to save for a car. I’ll be dependent the rest of my life. If I can’t stop the weight from coming back, I’ve lost and the illness wins.
So, okay, I thought, today—only water with lemon, fruits and vegetables. I’ll make smoothies. I’ll stay at the library all day if I have to. I can do this for one day. I can.
But, even as I wrote that and meant it, another part of me knew I could never pull it off. How many times had I tried extreme measures—fasts, cleanses, sudden dietary shocks meant to galvanize the metabolism? That kind of clamping down on the ravenous feeding only made it worse. Every time. I knew, even as I promised myself one day of food sanity, that I was poking a very large animal with a pointy stick.
I white-knuckled it until noon, then found myself at the microwave, making a plate of nachos.
It was a relief, really, to acknowledge my true nature.
Compulsive eating is part of my illness. So are compulsive spending and sex. And because they are compulsions, there’s no rational way to get rid of them. Believe me I’ve tried. My therapist and I have looked at these behaviors from every angle. The only way I’ve found to work with them is to acknowledge them and give them space. To hold them with an open hand instead of a closed fist. Which seems counter intuitive when they are raging. I want the gobbling to stop, not watch the freak show as it happens. But, weirdly, watching does help. It tempers the ferocity and lessens the destruction.
By trying to save money, I’ve put my self in a pressure cooker. Being poor has always triggered me, so I knew choosing to be even poorer might be dangerous. But, I also thought that having a goal, something to work toward, might make that stress easier to bear. Could I temper the panic and the compulsion to spend money?
The answer, it seems, is yes. But the anxiety and compulsivity squirted sideways in food frenzies. They will not be denied.
I’m not giving up, though. I just passed through a couple of ragged days, and it’s hard to watch when the depression, anxiety and mania color the view. I’m clearer today, and calmer. The radio in my head has dialed away from the Self-Hatred channel and is back on Easy Listening. Today, I’m okay about gaining back the weight. It’s a temporary adjustment to all the stress. And if it’s not temporary, then, that will have to be okay, too. I’m going to let it be. Instead, I’ll turn my attention to the stress itself—the feelings of deprivation and powerlessness, the fear and uncertainty.
I’ll become an Observer, like September on Fringe, changing the outcome just by watching the experiment, noting the effects with a gentle, non-judgmental attitude. Like September, I can’t be completely objective. We both care about the outcome of the experiment too much. And I may keep binging, but at least I won’t be eating raw roast beef sandwiches with seven jalapeños and tabasco sauce. I still have a little dignity.
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