onceafatgirl

The great relief of not eating my feelings

I don’t know what to say today. Except that quitting sugar is still the greatest thing to ever happen to me.

I have been sad and emotional this week. But yesterday I turned a corner and have been feeling better.

When I was eating compulsively, my funks never lifted that quickly. Sugar fed my depression, even if it felt like it was helping in the moment.

I am not happy all the time since I stopped eating compulsively. I am a particularly emotional person and that didn’t change when my eating changed. But what changed was my ability to change. To honor a feeling and then let it go. To be with the hurt, the frustration, the sadness, the uncertainty, the fear, and then trust. Trust that it would all shift, and that the shifts would, over all, move on an incline.

Yesterday I was talking to somebody about what it is like to have had the kind of life that “wasn’t so bad.” That others have “had it worse.”

And that is fine. Perspective is great. But it doesn’t mean that my traumas weren’t traumas. It doesn’t mean that my fears aren’t valid.

I have had a job, and a safe one, through this whole pandemic. I work from my apartment and have no need to meet with people for any work related reasons at all, except for my husband, and he was going g to be here anyway. And I have another job lined up right after this one ends. So there is at least another month of money coming in. I am grateful for the money security. I am grateful that I have it so good when so many people are struggling.

But I am scared. I am sad. I am angry. I am frustrated. I want to go home and rest for a while, and try to wrap my mind around what comes next, because I don’t believe there will be a “back to normal.” And I feeling let down that I don’t get to have a minute to pause and process that.

And I am so grateful that I am not eating those feelings.

I won’t say that food never solved anything. I believe it helped me when I was young and had too many too-big feelings for my little self to navigate. But it turned on me pretty early. And now it’s a burden I am grateful I don’t have to carry anymore.

So I am navigating a lot right now. My unhappiness as well as my great good fortune. And how to reconcile those. But sugar and the oblivion it offers is not an option. And that is a great relief.