A few months ago I wrote about my difficult relationship with food. (Food Glorious Food - Part 1) Not much has actually happened since then because of lots of other things going on, For example, LittleBoo being critically ill during the summer.
In fact the stresses of the summer have added to my food problems as apart from having a month eating hospital food, I've also comfort eaten to dull down the understandable fear, distress and pain I felt as I saw my daughter suffering so badly.
As she got better and was finally out of hospital she recuperated at home and I was relieved and exhausted and my bad eating habits continued. And so it continues. In fact since then I've been eating gluten (and suffer for it - my fault) and things seem to go from bad to worse. It seems impossible to stop.
It's hard to understand and I don't expect anyone to really. A friend who's a therapist was chatting with me. She doesn't particularly like the term eating disorder, and prefers the description eating solution. In essence, where someone has 'chosen' to use their relationship with food as the solution to another situation. Sounds complex and I guess it is. But I totally understand where she's coming from, even though I don't understand how it directly applies to me.
Around the time I wrote the other blog post about food, I was spending much time searching and finding out about why my food 'problem' felt so dangerous and out of control. I read much and began to understand that the labels, anorexia, binge eating, bulimia, compulsive eating and food addiction, are all expressions of the same illness or disorder.... or as my therapist friend would say, all solutions to an underlying issue.
A month ago I finally had enough courage to ring the Eating Disorders Centre. I had an assessment about two weeks ago and I'm on the waiting list for treatment. In the meantime they're offering me alternative therapies to help me relax a bit. So there are things like Indian Head Massage, Reiki, back massage, etc.
During the assessment I explained how I'd been told as a teen that I was pre anorexic. I was also bulimic for a time and now everything is out of control and I don't known who, what or why. But I am morbidly obese, and my weight can fluctuate by stones quite frequently. It was explained that this pattern is familiar and in some ways I'm a text book case.
This knowledge was strangely comforting.
But now I'm feeling down and at a loss. At times quite desperate and scared. I'm big. I don't know how much I weigh. I don't feel I am able to find out yet. This wait seems to be forever.
I have days like this where I need to eat because I'm hungry, yet I'm so confused about it all. It's very hard to explain. It's like not 'daring' to eat but then having to eat in order to dull the pain the whole issue causes. And then just when I know I'll never eat again, an hour or two later I eat. I am my own worse enemy. I am also an intelligent woman, according to my last IQ test the result was 140, which is ridiculous. But my intelligence, regardless of where it figures on a questionable measure of intelligence, can't get the better of this issue. It is put on hold, paused, suspended, until normal service is resumed. This illness/condition/disorder/whatever, appears to have a masssive amount of power over me. All the time, all day, every day.
How did this happen? More importantly, how can it stop?
About Me
- Aliboo
- United Kingdom
- I'm a 47 yr old, Aliboo, well only biologically - in every other sense I'm only 25, esp in my heart. Amongst other things I'm a severely disabled wheelchair user, living independently in the UK with my seven year old daughter who has CP. Recently my 19 year old son has flown the nest. I strongly believe in trying to enjoy life and exp the here and now, leaving worry about tomorrow until then. Yet life is often complex and seldom straight forward, I'm in pain 24/7, and have a list almost as long as my arm of other 'things' including quite bad depression. I've only felt able to be more open about in the last year or so. My medication makes me very slow, tired and interferes with my thinking process. I reckon they can make me seem less intelligent, less aware, less interested or interesting! Sometimes it all feels too much, and I need to remember there are many good things happening too. I go to Uni where I'm studying part time for a degree, I'm a writer, I'm into Green issues, politics and personal development. I'm an ageing hippy, who works hard and loves life and the challenges and joys it presents. But more importantly I'm me - a woman, a mother, a daughter, a lover and a friend.
Followers
Small thoughts
- Life is soooo short, forgive quickly and mean it, take risks, love again, reach out, break rules, have endless compassion, laugh with joy, hug like you need to be hugged, say kind words, be positive in everything, always say please and thank you, see wonder in everything, give more than you take, value others, never regret anything that made you smile and just be yourself.
- 'Well-behaved women seldom make history." Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.
- Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
- I'll be a post-feminist in a post-patriarchy
- "The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed" - Ghandi
- "Of all the senses, common sense is the least common of all..."
- "Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open"
- All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy. ~Spike Milligan
- Aspire to inspire before you expire.
- "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." (JFK)
- "Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same" ~ The Fray
- You will never become who you want to be if you remain who you are!!
For mothers of a child with a disability
Madeleine
Copyright
2 comments:
Best of luck A, I don't know what I can do to help/support you but I do want you to get better and to feel better about yourself. And get healthier!
Glad you've taken that first step to finding a solution.
Go for it, I'm not the only person who wants you to get better!
hey sweetpea. I think (for what its worth, despite having no expert knowledge)that being coeliac screws up your relationship with food way more than a non coeliac's. You're actively told by the nutritionists to pay humungous attention to what you're eating. You actively have a reason to see food as an enemy- it can physically damage you. And yet it sustains you, and is neccessary to keep you alive. That is bound to screw up your view of summat that to everyone else is just a fact of life- something that happens 3 times a day.
I got way more obsessed with food once I became coeliac, thats for definite! Having had to have kept a food diary etc. It certainly doesnt help that loads of the advice about a healthy diet doesnt apply to us- like the eating whole grains and being able to buy things like low fat biscuits and processed shite.
I realise this is all a bit random and makes no sense but I've also been swinging 2 stone up and down since diagnosis and dont understand why- other than comfort eating and when out and about being limited to fatty shitty things that happen to be gluten free, that or sushi.
Hohum, lots of love, here if you ever need to chat :)
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