I've been down scratching around at the bottom of life lately. It hasn't been fun. I've not been here a whole lot, but I've been trying to keep reading your blogs for encouragement.
I'm accepting my fat ok. I'm just having trouble deciding if I'm eating disordered or naturally fat. The only thing I know for a fact is that I have a very complicated relationship with food and that I was undoubtedly an exercise bulimic.
I've always believed I was an anorexic, but I'm not even sure of that now. I know I starved myself for a long time. And I don't know if the eating I did/do would be considered binging. I know I always think about food...eating it, not eating it, why do I want to eat it, why does it rule my life, why can't I turn off the food thoughts in my head...food, food, food, food, food, food.
It is like I am never satisfied....like I'm craving something, but I don't know what it is. Sometimes I can't think of one single thing I want to put into my mouth, but I have a strong urge and drive to eat something. Then I spend the next hour trying to figure out why I want to eat when I don't want to eat. Am I sleepy, thirsty, blah, blah, blah. There seems to be no answer. Then I end up eating something...anything.
The only time I ever felt free from the thought of food, free of the drive and urge to eat was when I was on Wellbutrin. I was driving down the road and all the sudden I realized I wasn't thinking about food and I was hungry...really hungry...physically...growly hungry. I hadn't eaten or thought about food for hours. I yelled out loud to myself in the car, "I feel normal! This is what it feels like to be normal!" It was a blessed relief to be free from thoughts of food for a few days.
Sadly, the "normal" feeling went away and I again became obsessed with food. I feel like a slave, a prisoner to food. I hate food. I hate thinking about it and eating it. I don't hate eating it because it makes me fat. Thank God for that. That improvement is a direct result of this FA movement and your blogs. I just hate eating it because it rules me. I can't tell it no. I am at the mercy of food and the thought of food.
I could literally eat constantly...not because I'm a pig, not because I'm greedy, not because I don't have anything else I want or need to do, but because I'm driven to eat by what feels like a demonic force. It is more powerful than I am. It doesn't even feel like it is me. *I* try to fight it but *it* always wins. Don't tell me fat people don't have will power. People like me exercise will power every minute of every day. I'm tired from the fight. I'm depressed from losing the fight. The thoughts of food make me so very tired. The eating of food makes me so very tired. It is enough at times to make me want to off myself...just to be free from the thoughts.
I'd love to get into HAES. But I'm afraid I'll replace thoughts of food with thoughts of constant exercise. I've done that very successfully. It was great until I got a serious exercise related back injury and everything hurt...even sitting. I don't trust myself to exercise for health. I don't trust my body...my back..not to hurt.
I'd love to get into intuitive eating. The phrase makes me want to laugh. Yeah. Right. Trust THIS body!? No way. I'd neglect my family, never leave the house except to go to the grocery store or the drive through. I wouldn't read. I wouldn't blog. I'd lock myself in a room with my food and eat until I died. I DO NOT TRUST MY BODY. I hate my body and NOT because it is fat. I hate it because it betrays me and I can't trust it.
I'm pretty sure I'm eating disordered. I'm not sure if I'm naturally fat. I don't really care at this point. I don't think it matters. All I know is that I'm tired...tired of the mental and physical fight against food. I'm worn out. I'm tired of people assuming I'm weak and lazy and stupid and greedy. I'm not. I'm tired.
I want to be healthy. I want to be active and feel good. I want my body to reach its natural set point. I want to be "normal". I don't care how much I weigh or what I look like. That really isn't the issue with me anymore. I just want to feel like I did that week on Wellbutrin. It was heaven. I was free from the fight. Food didn't rule my thoughts. My thoughts didn't drive me to eat. I had room in my brain for other stuff.
For one week in my life I could trust my body. For one week I was free.
1 hour ago
11 comments:
Kat, thank you for sharing these thoughts and this situation. I can relate because I feel like I am always fighting with myself as well. Do I really want to eat? and etc. But again, You will work through this... the struggle may be never ending but I'm sure we'll find a medium -- somehow. *hugs*
Oh boy did your post resonnate with me! I actually described that feeling to my therapist two years ago. I was starving and just wanted to inhale everything but nothing satisfied. I used to compulsively collect things but nothing was ever enough. I tried to get outside of myself and I volunteered in dog rescue - then overwhelmed myself with too much responsiblity and too many dogs.
I burnt out. I hit bottom. I couldnt help even myself. Thats when I started a new medication (Cymbalta - yay my sex drive is back!!) and committed to regular therapy.
It took about a year and things started to turn around. Turns out I have PTSD which likely came from being tortured for being a fat kid. (Aint that a kick?) I dont have that feeling like I need to inhale everything any more. Im still fat but I started accepting that as part of me. I started getting active - canoeing on weekends. (And I always hated being outside!) And I just discovered the whole FA community -how incredibly eye opening to see echos of my thoughts, experiences and feelings.
Life has changed dramatically in the last two years. But Ohhhh Boy do I remember that feeling!
Kat - Did the Wellbutrin just quit working? That would suck, big time. It sounds like an eating disorder to me, but probably one they don't have a diagnosis for, so would classify as EDNOS, which also sucks. Finding someone to help with an eating disorder that has a solid diagnosis is hard enough, trying to find someone qualified to help with your kind of disorder has to be even worse. Not having had to deal with anything like this, but having dealt with depression (and known people who were OCD), could this maybe be obsessive/compulsive? And are there drugs to treat it whose side effects aren't worse than what you're currently dealing with?
Dammer, but you have to be one of the strongest women I know, to keep on keeping on in spite of this.
I could have written this post myself. I've dieted, I've starved myself, I've eaten nothing, I've worked out until I was at the point of collapse. I have little to no idea what "normal" is.
I wish I knew what to tell you to shake free of these feelings, but I barely know myself. I'm just try to hang on to the moments, however brief they are, when I feel like I'm getting it right. Last night when it came time for dinner was one of those times. I thought about what I wanted and the answer I heard was, "Get a bagel." Not, "I want a bagel," or "I need a bagel," or even "I fancy bagels," just "Get a bagel." I asked myself why, what about the bagel did I like. The easy factor? The crunchy factor? The carb factor? It took more probing that I'm used to allowing myself to do, but eventually my instincts answered and confessed that they didn't really want a bagel...they wanted pretzels with hummus. It was such a simple thing, but it felt like winning the lotto.
If I had to guess, I'd say that you and I probably aren't used to giving that much thought to ourselves and our needs, and that is a big part of our struggle. I feel like any need I have is enormous and unnecessarry, so I try to discount them by not trusting myself. So perhaps the first step in getting past these feelings is to believe that we already are the kind of people worth trusting.
I know what you're talking about, because I'm like that for 1 or 2 days a month, right before my period starts. Is it possible that there's a hormonal component? Do you have a doctor that you trust enough to discuss it with?
Anyway, it's a very brave thing to post about. The solution under intuitive eating, I guess, is to just eat until you don't want to anymore. I agree that it's a scary idea. I wonder if it would work.
I've self-analyzed the two primary reasons why I obsess about and focus on food:
1. I start to obsess about food when my body is malnourished, starving, or even just hungry. I've found that if I eat food regularly that is good for my body, the obsessions fade.
2. Even if I am eating a healthy diet, I find I focus on food and weight when I am depressed, stressed or upset about something else in my life that isn't even related to food and weight. Big end of the quarter paper due? Stressed about work? Argument with the husband or my sister? It's much easier to escape into food obsessions than it is to dwell on the more troubling and pertinent issue.
Like you, I have no idea if I am meant to be naturally fat. I've never been attuned to my body for my weight to stabilize for any extended period of time. But my weight has been fairly stable for the past several years and my relationship with food is the healthiest it's ever been.
My therapist asked me recently if I wanted to lose weight. I'd like to lose some weight, although now my expectations are more realistic (I'd like to weigh 150 and not 90). But I told her that I also didn't want to go crazy doing it. I'd much rather have a healthy, intuitive-eating-based diet and be fat than be food-obsessed, neurotic and thin.
Vesta,
The Wellbutrin quit working. I believe there is an OCD component. OCD runs in my family. I've tried about every med in the book. All that keeps me going to date is good old Prozac. My doc gave me Wellbutrin to add to the Prozac, but I haven't started it yet. Not sure if I will.
Jae,
I'm trying to pay more attention to my body. I think I will eventually give intuitive eating a real try. Trusting my body is a huge big scary step though.
jen,
I believe this will turn around. This whole FA experience has dredged up so much old stuff. It has really shaken me, but it has also made me think. I am not hating my fat anymore. I'm walking with my head higher. I'm mad as hell about the mistreatment of fat folks no matter what the reason for their being fat. I'm mad as hell about folks being judged on their looks altogether instead of their heart. I just can't shake the thoughts and drives surrounding food. I want to start hiking and biking again but can I do it without becoming exercise bulimic? I will get this worked out. I'm just tired right now.
dee,
Yes. I used to eat everything that wasn't nailed down once a month! That is no longer an issue due to surgery. I have no ovaries. Thank God that is over. It was like what I am describing but on steroids. Thank you for reminding me that it could be worse!!
Thanks for the hugs Michelle:)
Just a thought - do you have any idea whether the strong drive to eat food is physiological, or mental, or both?
It matters because the fixes are different - for example it's no use going through therapy for emotional overeating if your emotions are just fine but instead your body is sending out some really strong EATEATEAT messages because some hormone or other is out of whack.
ht,
It is probably both. I know I'm an emotional eater. But at times I'm not hungry at all, really don't want to eat and I still feel driven to eat. It is so weird. Even when I think really hard about...is it emotion, is it fatigue, is it thirst, am I lonely...I just can't figure it out. I've even "sleep eaten", you know, wake up at night and eat 15 Hershey's Kisses and not remember it. I know I did it and vaguely remember it only after I see the papers on the floor.
Kat - You may want to talk to you doc about switching you from Welbutrin to something along the lines of Adderall. I've started it (after trying a few others for ADHD, anxiety and depression, I feel like a walking pharmacy!)
Anyway, a friend suggested it after she'd been on it for several months and had lost her "slavery to food", as she puts it. She gets, hungry, eats, and the hunger goes away. It sounds so simple! Really! So, I've just started it myself, and I'm finding her description fairly accurate. I'm on the XR, so it never really "wears off", you know? That's when I used to turn into a complete garbage disposal.
Good luck, either way. I really hope your doc can help you work this out!
Beck,
Thanks for your encouragement. I love my general doc. He is a real sweety. I guess I need to find a good psychiatrist though. It is just SO expensive to see them. And I had one that used me as a guinea pig and nearly killed me with one combo of meds...and she was supposed to be one of the best. I have PTSD from that. Ha.
Yes, I suspect ADD tending toward hoarding. I either get locked onto something I'm really interested in or distracted completely. Maybe a mixture of ADD and OCD anlong with depression, & anxiety. Oh, hell... just throw in the whole DSM and you've got me!
I'd love to go to Dr. Amen's clinic(author of Change Your Brain Change Your Life) for a brain scan and treatment plan. I took a serious blow to the head in 4th grade and I changed overnight. My personality changed dramatically and that is when I started having food issues and weight gain. Really think I got some minor(major?) brain damage. Can't afford his clinic at this point though.
Rachel,
Thanks for your encouragement too. Sounds like you are well on your way to peace and health. I WANT to do intuitive eating and HAES, I'm just afaid to at this point. It would be really interesting to see what my real size and natural weight are though.
Post a Comment