onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the category “Personal Growth”

06 Apr 2015
2 Comments

I suppose “better late than never” is a saying for a reason…

I was in the shower today, and I realized that for the first time in over 3 years, I forgot to write a blog.

Obviously, here I am, a day late. Writing because I have a commitment. But I have to be honest with you. This scares the crap out of me.

I fear the first chink in the armor. I fear the first mistake. I fear the first slip. Because I fear that snowball effect. I don’t like knowing that I forgot to write a post and the world didn’t end. It would be so much easier on me if everything had bigger, scarier, more life-changing immediate consequences.

I am so incredibly afraid of my own lack of character. I am terrified that if I let my guard down, I will revert to being the kind of person I have been. The kind of person I was ashamed of.

I feel like the words I am writing here are not enough to explain to you the terror I am in. I sometimes wonder if anyone can understand what it is like to hate yourself so thoroughly and completely that you don’t even know that you hate yourself until it stops.

I fear slip-sliding back to that place. In tiny movements. In nearly imperceptible increments. An insidious regression.

I have gained so much peace in the past 9 1/2 years, since I got my eating under control. Even when all is not well, I am well. Even when I am in pain or unhappiness, I am still strong in my heart and soul.

But today, I am afraid. Not of what I am, but of what I know I am capable of being, because I have been something else before. And it was a terrible way to live.

I am also reprimanding myself right now for my perfectionism. It’s a kind of sickness for me that is also tied in with my eating disorders. It is the M.O. of The Good Girl who wants to please everyone but herself. But on the other hand, that same perfectionism is the very thing that can allow me to say “F*** it! You’ve already ruined everything,” when I slip up, like I did last week when I forgot to write a blog. My perfectionism is the back door to my laziness and resignation.

Forgetting to post in the past two days was, without a doubt, an honest mistake. I have had a lot on my mind lately. And Easter yesterday made it more complicated in my head. So far, in 2015 I have had a lot of malice pointed in my direction. And it has been taking its toll on me. It makes me tired and has me distracted. I have accidentally hurt myself more in the past month than usual. It takes a lot of patience for me to let things go again and again and again. And then messing up on my own, especially something so important to me like this blog, makes everything feel so much more overwhelming.

And I am embarrassed to have screwed up. I don’t like coming here and saying that I have a commitment and I failed.

Needless to say, I am putting an alarm on my phone to remind me to post to my blog every week from now on. I don’t want to let this mistake become a regular occurrence until I just stop blogging and the whole thing falls away.

I don’t want to be cruel to myself. I don’t want to blow this out of proportion, either. But the fear of regression is real for me. I don’t want to wake up one day hating myself because I let my commitments break apart one by one. It took too long to live a life I love to let it go without a fight.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , , , ,
28 Mar 2015
4 Comments

Free to be funny another day

I was reading a blog the other day. It was a parenting blog. I am not a parent. It was about DIY cleaning products. Which I will almost certainly never make or use. I was reading it because it caught my attention and I clicked on it.

It was funny. It was one of those sarcastic-mom blogs. The kind of thing Erma Bombeck was writing before blogs. Even before the internet being readily available was a thing. I liked what I read. It was fun.

And it got me thinking about the fact that this blog is not particularly funny.

I am funny. In my life, I make people laugh. A lot. And I will be blunt. Eating disorders, while serious, and worthy of an authentic conversation, can still be pretty hilarious.

Anything that is not killing you at any particular moment can be funny. Even something that is killing you can be funny.

So I thought about how to make this a funnier blog.

I thought about the things that make my friends with eating disorders laugh. Like how my boyfriend will eat one snack cake in a package of two. He will just leave the other sitting there. He’s not even controlling himself and saving it like a good, obsessive eater would. Really? You can’t just mindlessly eat the other one because it’s there? What, you’re too good for that? Or when a friend talks about how her grandmother used to tell her that if something had fruit in it, it wouldn’t make you fat. So she would eat big, rich desserts that had some element of fruit and didn’t expect them to make her gain weight. How could I have gained weight? All I ate for dessert was fruit!

But then I wondered if it would land for people who didn’t have eating disorders. Or if it would just be salt in the wound for people who did, and who were not having an easy time of it.

And then I remembered one of the things I love about having my eating disorders under control. I have time and space. For whatever. I don’t have to do everything now. There’s another meal coming. There’s another day coming. There’s another week coming with another blog post to write. If I want to be funny, I can think about being funny. I can try it out some time. No rush. And it will be OK if it doesn’t turn out for the best. I don’t write for an audience. I write for myself and sincerely hope that people get something out of it. But if they don’t, that’s not actually my responsibility.

A while ago I thought about writing some fiction. And I am writing some fiction in my spare time now. I thought about starting an eating disorder blog long before I actually made Onceafatgirl. I thought about quitting smoking before I quit smoking. I didn’t jump into any of those decisions. And in the end, I ended up doing them. In my own time. At my own pace.

It’s so freeing to remember that I really am free.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , ,
21 Mar 2015
1 Comment

The difference between bliss and calamity

I am on my way back home after a really fantastic, week-long vacation. We rented a boat and cruised around on the ocean for two days.  We saw sea turtles and manta rays and jellyfish. I went in the ocean for the first time. I got lots of sun. (I’m a little crispy actually.)


We ate really well this whole trip. One night we borrowed a grill from the resort and had filet mingon stuffed with crab. But my vacation was not about eating. It was not about restaurants. It was not about “cheat days” or “free-for-alls”. A vacation is not an excuse for me to eat whatever I want.

I gave up excuses when I put boundaries around my food. I took on a belief system that says no excuse is acceptable. I do what I do no matter what.

And that allows me a certain kind of peace. I wore my bikini when I was by the pool or on the boat. I’m not skinny. But I am comfortable enough in my skin to wear my bikini in public. 

But If I broke my food boundaries, even if I weighed exactly the same, and looked exactly the same, I would never have been able to wear my bikini. Having boundaries around my food allows me to be happy with myself. It allows me to be less judgmental of myself. It allows me a certain freedom from my own obsessive thinking. About my body and about food.

While I was prepping meals for the flight home today, I was mixing sesame seeds into my butter. But the butter wouldn’t soften in the air conditioning. So I took it outside to our patio and sat in a deck chair and watched the ocean while I was mixing it. My boyfriend came out and looked startled. He asked “Are you eating?” 

I said “No, I’m just making tomorrow’s dinner.”

He said, “Thank God! All I could think was ‘Oh no!'”

I told him, “Yep. If you ever see me eating and it’s not time to eat, think ‘Oh no!'”

My food boundaries are the difference between blissful serenity and disastrous calamity.

This trip was bliss. I can’t wait to do it again. 


Posted in beauty, Body image, Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , ,
07 Mar 2015
4 Comments

Not to succeed, win, have or accomplish

I was an impatient child. Especially when it came to learning. 


See, I’m smart. Really smart. And most things came easily to me. I didn’t have to work hard to learn. And things that I didn’t learn immediately…well, I hated them. I didn’t want to do them. I didn’t want to fail. It made me feel bad. And I always felt like whatever energy I put in to something that ended in failure was a waste of my time. It was all about what I had to show for it in the end.

Soon I am going to get back into the workforce, and I would like to get a job teaching crochet, and helping people fix their crochet projects. At least one place I am looking at requires that you know how to both knit and crochet. So recently I started trying to knit again.

I am a bad knitter.

That is an imprecise way of putting it. There are things that I am great at. Like the dexterity parts. I am excellent at making the different stitches. I can make beautiful patterns with them. I can make cables and laces. When it comes to the actual knitting, I am really talented.

But there is another part of knitting that I am really really bad at. I cannot fix mistakes. This is inconvenient for a girl with mild perfectionist tendencies. If I make a mistake anywhere in a project, I don’t know how to get myself back to the point before I made the mistake without unraveling the whole thing. It’s all or nothing. I either have to live with the imperfections, or start again from the beginning. And I can’t stand making mistakes. So, so far, it’s all nothing.

But there is something different about me since I got my eating under control. I am patient. I am now one of those people who believes it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. (Seriously, I never thought I would be one of those people. I promise I don’t have art with motivational sayings. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

So for the past few weeks, I have been knitting. And I have nothing to show for it. And I am a-okay with that. I must have started anew at least ten times. And yet none of the times I unraveled the whole thing and wound it back around the ball of yarn did I feel it was a waste of my time. I wasn’t doing it because I need a scarf or a blanket or a sweater. I have plenty of beautiful clothes. And my house is cozy warm. I was doing it to practice. To get better. To learn. I was knitting to knit. It’s that simple.

The events and circumstances of my life are so much less “significant” since I got my eating disorders under control. And it’s such a relief. I love being free from having to be great at everything. I love having the ability to be incapable without shame. I love being exactly who I am all the time. I can even be ok with being a bit of a perfectionist.

I’m going to put the knitting away for a while. I just finished a really amazing crochet project and I’m ready to do more of that. But it’s nice to do something for the sake of doing it. Not to succeed, win, have, or accomplish.
Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , ,
28 Feb 2015
3 Comments

Praying to a Magic 8 Ball or sitting in a chair

I was talking to some friends recently and one of them gave a beautiful analogy about faith.

There is a chair. Do you have faith in the chair? Words about having faith in the chair are meaningless. You can say you have faith in the chair, but you show your faith in the chair by sitting in it. You may truly believe the chair will hold you, but unless you sit in it, your faith is meaningless.

I was raised Catholic. I believed in God as a little kid. When I got older, I stopped. Then I believed. Then I stopped. Then I believed. Around and around.

The reason I was able to go around and around was that I never “sat in the chair.” Faith was something decorative like a painting, or maybe more of a kitschy novelty like a Magic 8 Ball, but never something practical, like a chair. I would live as if God had no part in my day to day life. I would do whatever I could to make things go the way I wanted them to. And then when things were going badly, or I wanted something I wasn’t going to get, I “prayed” for a miracle. It was always about what I wanted. And in the most short-sighted, specific way imaginable. Not that I wanted peace, or love, or security, but that I wanted that apartment that I didn’t get, or that boyfriend who didn’t like me back, or those shoes they didn’t have in my size. And I wanted the old, white-haired, white dude in heaven to make that happen.

As a Catholic child I absolutely conceptualized God as the love-child of Charlton Heston and Merlin sitting on a big Throne in the clouds. But now, I do not have an anthropomorphized vision of God. Now my belief can be considered a belief in the general benevolence of life. I believe that when I meet the circumstances in my life with integrity and honor, I always end up better, and with better circumstances than I had. And I have come to trust that the pains and the dips and the falls are not setbacks. They are simply me not getting what I want. And I have come to trust that if I am not getting what I want, it is because it is better not to.

Lately, there has been a lot of me not getting what I want. Quite a bit of sadness and frustration. Lots of disappointments. And I do get disappointed when I want things and my life doesn’t work out that way. I could exhaust myself trying to get what I think I want. But instead this is where I exercise my faith. This is where I sit in the chair.

When I was eating sugar, I used food to numb difficult emotions. When I stopped eating compulsively, I learned how to bear uncomfortable feelings. I had to. There was no other option. And it turns out to be an incredibly useful skill. It has made me calmer, happier and stronger. And it let me have faith, because I suddenly had a means of showing it. I could be still and let things be the way they were. I could sit in the chair.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , ,
21 Feb 2015
5 Comments

Sorry, not sorry

What are you willing to do to win?

Are you willing to lie? How big of a lie? A little lie? How big can a lie be before it’s not a little lie anymore. What are you willing to do to cover up that little lie you told to win? Are you willing to cheat? Are you willing to pass the blame? Are you willing to steal?

Over the years, I have figured out that winning is not my goal. For me, every day I am sober from sugar, my goal is to be simultaneously more humble and less of a doormat.

When I was eating compulsively, I spent almost all of my life apologizing for existing, but refusing to apologize for my bad behavior. I would justify it, blame other people, and just plain old lie about it, but I never just said, “I was wrong, I’m sorry.”

Now, I am committed to the opposite. I apologize for my bad behavior. And I refuse to apologize for existing. And that extends to being myself and taking care of myself. It’s the difference between being a self-righteous chump and a modest powerhouse.

To my self-righteous chump self, winning was a necessity that I was willing to do anything to achieve. To the modest powerhouse, life is not a zero-sum game.

It turns out that a lot of people have opinions about me. They have opinions about my lifestyle, my choices, and my personality. They have opinions about things that are absolutely and 100% none of their business.

That’s OK. They can have their opinions. What they cannot have are my apologies. Too bad, so sad. Sorry, not sorry.

And there is another thing that they cannot have. They cannot have a say in my heart, soul, or spirit. They cannot make me hard. I will not allow it.

I’m a sensitive person in some ways. I have very big feelings. Books and movies make me cry. Even TV shows and comic books make me cry. (Good ones, of course…)

But malice and cruelty make me cry too. Especially, but not exclusively, when they are directed at me.

My being susceptible to being hurt upsets a lot of people in my life. People who want what’s best for me want me to be harder to touch. Growing up, people used to tell me not to be so sensitive. My boyfriend tells me that when I get upset “they” win.

But I don’t think that’s true. I think “they” win when I grow a crusty layer of ice around my heart, so that I am immune to malice and cruelty.

I don’t want to be immune to malevolence. I want to be hurt by hurtful things, so that I never stop being moved by moving things, or inspired by inspiring things. I never want to forget my humanity.

I spent the first 28 years of my life trying to numb my gigantic feelings with sugar. I built fortresses around myself trying to be hard. Fortresses of fat and indifference and meanness. I ate my feelings into a 300 lb body. And it never did work, either. I was still sensitive. I just lived in a tiny world. A tiny world of self-involvement and ego.

This is better. Crying is not the end of the world. Nobody is winning when I cry. Because crying is not part of a game. It is part of being alive and aware and available for life. Which I do for myself. So, sorry, not sorry!

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , ,
15 Feb 2015
1 Comment

I love my boring life.

The past few days have been perfectly delicious. Cooking, cleaning, writing, reading, crocheting, watching TV with my boyfriend. Peace and quiet. Nothing exciting.

This life I live now is exactly the thing I was terrified of before I got sober from sugar. I knew that I needed to give up sugar. My eating disorders were making my life unbearable. But I thought all of my happiness was over. How could I ever enjoy life again without chocolate cake? Without drinks at the bar?

I was so afraid of being bored to death. I was afraid of not feeling alive. The irony is that I was so trapped in my fear and insecurity, or sometimes the fantasy life in my head, that I was not actually living.

Don’t get me wrong. I had a lot of fun when I was younger. I was definitely a party girl. And I have great friends. But fun is not happiness. Fun is not serenity. Fun is not joy. It’s just fun. And it has its place. But it is external.

Chasing fun is no longer a necessity in my life, because I have a kind of peace and contentment that comes from inside me.

A lot of the fun I was having was so I could escape thinking about the things in my life that I was ashamed of. I was so easily overwhelmed to the point of paralysis. I had so much anxiety that I didn’t know how to take a small step because I was intimidated by looking at the whole journey. So there I was letting my life pass me by, not doing things that needed to be done, telling lies to cover that up. Constantly worried about the state of my life and what was going to happen to me.

Very exciting. If you’re into that kind of thing…

For me, being sober from sugar is not just about not eating sugar. It’s about dealing with all of the things in my life that I was using sugar to avoid. Because without sugar, I was forced to deal with them. They say if you want to know what you are eating over, stop eating. All that stuff comes right up and pokes you in the forehead.

I am not done dealing with myself. The point for me is to never be done dealing with myself. And the changes I have made so far were not quick. Or clean. Or smooth.

But I got myself to a place where I don’t have to escape the life I have. I am not ashamed of myself. And I don’t have to enjoy everything. Some things in my life are not sunshine and roses, it’s true. But every day, at any given moment, I love my life. The mundane is a sweet reminder that I can be with my reality exactly the way it is and be perfectly happy.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , ,
31 Jan 2015

Don’t use the force, Luke.

I have been thinking lately about the difference between power and force. I began thinking about the distinctions between them several days ago, and since then the idea has come up in my reading a handful of times. Like Jung’s Synchronicity.

Force is the way of the bully. Force is manipulation. Force is violence. It is lies and ultimatums. It is triangulation. It is malice and cruelty. And ultimately, force is about the ego.

This has been clear to me for many many years. Even before I got my eating under control.

But power? Power seemed more elusive. Hard to put a finger on. I could recognize when somebody had power. I could even recognize when I, myself, was being powerful. But there was a question in it too. Why was I powerful? What was the source of my power?

I have been mulling it over now and I can see something today. Power comes from peace. Power comes from letting what is be. Power comes from acceptance.

I am an incredibly powerful person. That is not a boast. I do not have power because I am special. Anyone can be powerful. But it’s scary. One has to give things up to be powerful.

My power comes from the containment of my ego. It comes from my willingness to put down the idea of what I want. It is about giving up any commitment to the way I think it “should be.”

You probably know the saying, “ a square peg won’t fit in a round hole.”

Force is when you take a hammer and you beat the peg into the hole. You might break the peg, you might break the hole, but dammit you are going to get that peg in where you want it.

Power is when you sit with the peg and the hole in front of you. You see them for what they are. You don’t expect them to be what they are not. You don’t expect them to do what they can’t. You don’t curse them for not being what you think they should be. You let it be what it is. And you wait. Patiently. Quietly. Because you know that life will turn up with a square hole for the peg you’ve got. Or a round peg for the hole you’ve got. Or both. Or sometimes, if you’re distracted, both the peg and the hole will just disappear.

The power that I have is the ability to see what is so, with clarity. Accept it with peace. And know what my options are for change.

It took power to stop eating compulsively.

What I wanted (ego) was to eat as much of whatever I wanted to eat whenever I wanted to eat it, and not be fat. And I wanted to eat chocolate cake every day all day.

I did a lot of things to myself in my mid 20’s to try to make this a reality. I abused laxatives. I made myself throw up. I ran excessively to the point of injuring myself. I used a lot of force. It didn’t work particularly well. And on top of not getting results, I was exhausted. Physically, emotionally and spiritually.

What I eventually had to do was look at the reality of the situation. I had this square peg. I was addicted to sugar and when I ate it, I was compelled to eat more and more and this was making me fat. The round hole was society telling me that I should be able to eat sugar in moderation. My peg didn’t fit. Period. And as soon as I accepted that, there was a new hole put in front of me. Boundaries for my eating. A way to control my eating disorders.

But first, I had to make peace with the fact that I had a square peg. That no amount of pounding it into that hole was going to make it round.

Over the past 9 years I am (slowly – very very slowly) learning to look at every aspect of my life in this way. To look at the peg and the hole. To see them for what they are, and not be blinded or misled by what I want them to be. And if they don’t fit, so be it.

This ability to accept, to let what is be, is untold freedom. And from a distance, if you don’t have these distinctions, it might look like I am forcing things. Or like I must have forced them. Like I must have hustled. Manipulated and triangulated. After all, how else does a woman get a beautiful life like mine? A life beyond my wildest dreams!

The truth is that I waited patiently for it. And it came to me. No, it did not come automatically. It did take a kind of work. I had to work on myself.

1) I had to get responsible. Part of seeing what is, is seeing what I created. Part of accepting is accepting my own mistakes. Admitting my part in the problem. And I also had to see what was not my responsibility. What was not my problem. What was not my mistake. I had to own what was mine, and reject what was not.

2) I had to get honest. If I am going to accept things as they are, my word has to reflect that. I can’t lie about something and accept the truth about it at the same time. The truth is the truth. Even if it’s not pretty, it’s mine. If it’s hard for me to deal with, then I had better deal with it quickly and efficiently so that I can move on and sleep at night.

3) I had to start trusting life. If I think life got it wrong, I need to check my ego. I often think back to the many examples I have of when I thought life got it wrong, because I wanted something and I didn’t get it. And when I look at it, I have always gotten better than I thought I wanted. My best friend tells a joke:

Human: God, I want that Volvo.
God: No, I don’t want you to have a Volvo.
Human: But God, I really want that Volvo. It will make me very happy.
God: But I would really rather not give you the Volvo.
Human: Please God? Please please please please please let me have the Volvo.
God: OK. Here’s your Volvo. But who am I gonna give this Porsche to now?

4) I had to start minding my own business. I had to let other people make their own life choices. And deal with the consequences of their own actions. I had to trust that life was always right for them too.

And 5) I had to learn to let go. I had to let go of people, places and things that didn’t fit anymore. I had to learn to let go of the way I thought it “should be.” And things that I had outgrown. And things that were broken. I had to let go of the round holes.

It seems rather contradictory, really. That power comes from peace. But fighting life is exhausting. Peace lets you keep your energy for the important stuff. Like cooking and making things. And love.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment
25 Jan 2015

The gift of desperation

I have mentioned before that the boundaries I keep around my food are strict. That do not eat sugar, grains or starch, including starchy vegetables. I control my portions exactly. I eat three times a day. No more and no less. And I do it every single day. There are no cheat days, no exceptions. No treats on my birthday. No snacks. No just this once. Not for weddings or funerals, or births. Some people find this extreme. (I used to, but I don’t anymore. After 9 years I think it is perfectly normal to only eat nutritious food in healthy quantities. I understand that it is not the norm, but I no longer think that makes it “extreme.”)

Today, I was on an internet forum for people who have boundaries around their food like I do. And a new person asked how long it took to get it “squeaky clean.” A number of people said that what we do is “squeaky clean” and that if you are not doing it that way, then technically you are not doing it. And the person responded that that was ideal but not possible. Not right away. That it must take time. So how much time?

I have seen enough people get sober to know that it takes how long it takes. Some people take years. Some people get it right away. There is no right or wrong about it.

I believe a lot has to do with a personal journey. I have heard people tell stories about how they had not had sugar for months, and then one day, they walked into a bakery. They could not really remember doing it. One minute they were sober from sugar, the next they were brushing crumbs off their shirt. They couldn’t explain it. And I don’t feel the need to judge that. It sounds horrible to me. Terrifying. Gut wrenching.

But there is something that needles at me in the question “how long does it take?” Because it lacks responsibility.

How long do I get to do what I want and still complain? I mean, I want what I want. But I don’t really want to do any work for it. This is magic, right? One day I will just stop eating too much, right?

How long am I allowed to keep being dishonest? How big does a lie have to be before it’s an actual lie? I just want to tell little lies, of course. Nothing major. Maybe just a little extra protein. It can’t hurt…

How long do I get to ask for help but not follow directions? I understand that this worked for you, but your extreme commitment makes you look pretty pathetic to me. I don’t want to look like that. I just want the results you got.

How long before I can say that I am totally a hopeless case and walk away? When do I get to quit?

When I got sober, I had what people have referred to as “The Gift of Desperation.” I was miserable. I hated myself. I was overwhelmed with pain and shame. I wanted out!

I had to ask myself what I was willing to do to stop letting food and my eating disorders control my life. I had to make bold decisions and take drastic actions. I did not ask what was going to be done for me. – Though so much was done for me! Supportive phone calls. People who were wiling to give their time and energy to address my questions and concerns. People who were willing to give me rules and suggestions. People who were willing to take a commitment from me and hold me to it, with love and generosity. – I asked what I was going to do to help myself.

I followed directions. I made drastic changes. I did things that, at the time, seemed almost sacrilegious. If I had made a meal and realized there was a problem with it that couldn’t be fixed to make it fit in my boundaries (like discovering I used a spice that had sugar in it or realizing I added too much oil and it was all mixed in now), I thew the whole thing away!

I understand that it can be difficult to grasp the kind of integrity I have around food. Especially for someone new. I would bet that the person who asked that question didn’t for a moment think it was about personal responsibility. Who is out in the world talking about personal responsibility? I get that we live in a society that has gradations for lies. That everyone around us wants instant gratification. That weight loss, especially, is a multi-billion dollar industry, based on losing weight with no hassle to the consumer. You won’t feel hungry! Eat all the foods you love! You won’t have to do anything! The pounds will just melt away!

That’s not how what I do works. I recommit to doing it exactly right every day. Three times a day. I take responsibility for what goes in my mouth, and how much, and when. I do extreme things. I have gotten extreme results.

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18 Jan 2015
1 Comment

A love of making things, and a predisposition to panic

I have come to a point in time where there are so many things that I want to do and seemingly not enough time to do them all.

Of course, that is ridiculous. I have a shocking amount of free time while I am not working. But it is filled with things that I want to do.

I am working on a new writing project, totally unrelated to this blog. I have started a new crochet project. Not to mention necessary things like trips to the grocery store, and laundry. I still have a basket of nothing but clean white socks that I have not paired and put away. Plus I have been cooking almost every meal when it is time to eat it. When I was working, I would cook once or twice a week and pack it all up.

It’s hard for me to think about what I got done when I worked. It was different. Mostly what got done was work. It would take me months, not weeks, to complete a crochet project. And my projects then were much simpler. This blog got written on one of the few days that I had off. Usually on the day that I did not cook all of my meals for the week.

There are so many things that I want to do all at the same time. Even, or maybe especially, when I am not working, and I feel like I should have time to do it all.  It’s frustrating. Sometimes when I am doing the mindless part of some errand, like pairing socks, or walking home from the grocery store, I can feel myself getting worked up, almost like a panic. About the next scene in the story I’m writing. About how to attach the sleeve of my new crochet sweater. About which I should do first, and what I will do if they don’t turn out right. I start breathing heavy and my mind starts to whirr. I have to tell myself that it all doesn’t have to be done right now. I have to remind myself that these are not life an death decisions. I have to accept that nothing has to get done in a day except that I have to keep my eating boundaries.

Most of this is stuff that I have gone through all of my life, with one glaring exception. In the years of my life before I put boundaries around my eating, I was never able to calm myself to the extent that things could continue to get done. When I was eating compulsively, I was never able to manage my panic.

My addiction to sugar and my compulsive eating manifested as a kind of manic-depressive disorder. I would have great ideas. I would be overwhelmed with the desire to learn new things and create beautiful art. All kinds of art. I would have great bursts. I would have artistic binges. I would write in a frenzy. I would crochet through the night. I would read until I passed out and then wake to immediately continue reading. I would not want to stop for anything. I was a salve to the panic. I was trying to keep up with the whirring in my head.

And then I would crash. A mistake, or problem, or a block would rear up. And I wouldn’t know what to do. And I would eat. Sugar. And I would be so exhausted from the whirring that I would stop. I would get so high on sugar that I couldn’t do any more. And then would come a period where I would just get high. I would’t write, or read or crochet. I would just get high on sugar and crash from sugar. And this period of nothing, this depressive part of the cycle, would last so much longer than the manic period.

I hated this part of myself. I was deeply ashamed of what I viewed as my laziness. My sloth. My disgusting waste of energy and talents. But I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t will myself to start back up again. So when I got a new mania, I seized it. I jumped in and pushed myself to exhaustion. I manic-ed myself into a new depression. The whole thing made possible by a steady stream of sugar and carbohydrates.

Now I don’t have the sugar to fuel my panic, or stop my flow. And I have the capacity to see the whirring, and calm myself. Because I am sober from sugar and compulsive eating, I have the tools to accomplish things at a manageable pace. I know how to stop temporarily. To regroup. To calm down. To do life things in between, like laundry and cooking and showering. And I have the knowledge that I never had before. That tomorrow is another day. That I will eat three meals tomorrow. I will write some more, and crochet some more. That there is more than enough time to do everything that needs to be done. And I know that if, on any given day, nothing gets done but keeping my food boundaries, that’s ok to. It isn’t a crash or a depression. It’s just a day where I take a rest.

I think I always thought I was a little crazy growing up. And I can see now that I was…sort of. Sugar made me a different person. Kate on sugar was Kate on drugs. I was a junkie in a totally legal and mostly socially acceptable way.

Sure, I’m still pretty neurotic. But I am not a person I am embarrassed or ashamed of. And I am not tormented by “sloth” or “waste.” I am just a woman with a love of making things, and a predisposition to panic.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , ,

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