onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “anxiety”

06 Jul 2014

Another little (actually, kind of big) way my life just got better

When I first got my eating under control 8 ½ years ago, other people that I knew who had done it before me said, “Put boundaries around your food and your life will get better.”

And like magic it has been true. A little at a time, I have changed drastically from the 28-year-old girl who couldn’t stop eating, couldn’t pay her bills, couldn’t be honest, to the 37-year-old woman who loves herself, lives in a comfortable body, and has a profound relationship with her own integrity. (Not to mention a life beyond her wildest dreams!)

I know that I have mentioned this before, but it’s worth mentioning again. Particularly because I just qualified for insurance for the first time since I stopped being eligible for my mother’s insurance.

Frankly, it doesn’t seem like the biggest of deals to me because I have had very few health problems in the past 15 to 20 years. Certainly nothing that was going to break me financially. Which, in retrospect, is a big deal. Because I was incredibly poor for almost all of my adult life.

That is not a complaint. I made certain choices. And I am not sorry to have made them. I don’t even mean that in the “what’s done is done, you can’t change the past” kind of way. (Though of course that’s true…) There are many things I “would have done differently” if that were a possible reality. But the choices I made about money and work and “career” are not among them.

The truth is that money has never been that important to me. I knew that I needed it to get by in life. But I was not particularly greedy for things. Not that I never spent money on luxuries. But I never needed the biggest, best, most expensive. (Unless we are talking about apples and cantaloupes. Then I spared no expense.) I worked enough to pay the bills (once I put boundaries around my eating and got some integrity around money.) But money was never how I judged my success. And “success” the way our culture defines it was actually not something I cared about either. I made choices about money based on how I wanted to spend my time.

But those choices were stressful in their own way. Not that I was unhappy. I was not. But there was little room for error in the way I lived. I could not have gotten really sick. I could not have gotten appendicitis or broken a bone, and still have been OK financially. I could not have had a fire in my apartment. I could not have withstood any number of ordinary life occurrences. I happen to have been very lucky. But I was not stupid, blind, or naïve. Nor did I think I was invincible. So there was an underlying fear and anxiety in my lifestyle.

And I never thought it would be resolved. I fully expected to go through my life with money troubles. With financial stress and anxiety. I expected it to be the direct result of the choices I made many years ago. I expected it to follow me as long as money ceased to be important to me. And this anxiety was so much a part of my daily life, that I didn’t even notice it on a day-to-day basis. It was a low-level hum in the back of my mind unless something happened. Like I got a particularly large bill, or some unexpected expense.

But now that is gone. It’s just plain not there anymore. I no longer worry about money. And now I have insurance. So there is another thing that doesn’t have to worry me.

And I know that this shift is the result of putting boundaries around my eating.

You could argue that it isn’t. That it has to do with the job I took. And the relationship I am in. And you would not be entirely wrong.

But both the job and the relationship, and so many smaller choices that affect my job and my relationship, are the result of putting boundaries around my eating.

8 ½ years is really not that long to have become essentially an entirely different person. The changes have felt so slow while I have been going through them. But really, when I look back at myself, even just one year ago, I am hardly recognizable.

Just like I was promised, when I keep boundaries around my food, one day at a time, baby step by baby step, my life gets better.

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18 Jan 2014
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With all due respect to FDR, I fear food more than I fear fear.

I had some high anxiety days this week. And while I am sure that my life would be more comfortable if I didn’t have moments of…well, discomfort…I won’t complain. It turns out that’s just not the way life goes. For anybody. And it was good to be reminded of some things.

Like that it’s nice to not only be able to feel, but also to be able to accurately recognize feelings. To be able to name them. I can say, “Hey! I’m feeling a little anxious today.” Which I couldn’t do when I was eating compulsively. Because I would eat my feelings before I knew what they were. I wouldn’t even recognize that I was having feelings, because everything masqueraded as hunger. I was well into adulthood before I realized that my yearning for food was really just yearning to get high. I just wanted to numb out.

When I stopped eating sugar and carbohydrates, and put boundaries around my food, one of the rules I took on was eating 3 meals a day. They are big, abundant, filling, and healthy meals. But there are exactly 3 of them. I do not snack. I do not save a little of a meal and put it aside for later. I do not graze. Three times a day, it is time for eating. And the rest of the time, it is not. The rest of the time it is time to do something else.

This is important because I cannot eat my feelings anymore. I may get to escape them for 20 minutes to an hour at any given meal time. But when dinner is done, and especially since there is no sugar in my meals to drug me, there is no getting away from myself. And that has proven to be a blessing.

Because it happens that you don’t get to pick and choose your feelings. You don’t get to feel and enjoy fun, joy and camaraderie if you insist on stuffing pain, anxiety and unhappiness.

It was actually something that surprised me when I stopped eating sugar. I found that I often wanted to eat because my happiness or excitement was overwhelming. It wasn’t just “bad” feelings that I found uncomfortable, it was all feelings.

So when I first stopped eating sugar and started only eating 3 times a day, I would think that I was hungry, but I wouldn’t eat. Because it wasn’t time. And then that hunger would grow and change. First into discomfort, and then into a feeling. A feeling I could grasp and name.

And none of those feelings ever killed me. Look! I’m still here! Breathing, even! And no longer afraid to feel things. Even yucky things. Like shame and jealousy and anger and embarrassment. I may not like those feelings, but I don’t have to fear them either. They always turn out to be paper tigers. Where as the food, the sugar and the constant eating and the obsession that I used to use to avoid those feelings, was killing me. Both physically and emotionally.

There is one other thing that my anxiety this week has me grateful for. It was good to remember that every feeling doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes feelings mean something. Many of my less pleasurable feelings have been signs that I needed to make some changes in my life.

But I don’t think I was learning any major life lessons this week. There was nothing in particular that triggered my mild panic. I don’t think recreational crocheting should make my heart race and fill me with dread. Which is what I was doing when I started to feel the impending doom. I think I am a person with a naturally anxious disposition. And it doesn’t mean anything about me.

I used to think that everything was a sign. That everything had a deeper, hidden meaning. That I was a puzzle that I was supposed to solve.

Now I suppose that may be true. But I stopped trying to solve the puzzle that is Kate. I stopped worrying about the hidden meaning. I figure that hormones and brain chemicals have a lot to do with my reactions to day to day experiences. That living in a body is complicated and strange no matter how healthy, sane, and well-balanced you are. And that if there is a major life lesson to learn, I will certainly learn it. It’s my experience that life is a strict schoolmaster. It doesn’t just let you off the hook. If there’s a lesson, there’s a test. And you will have to take that test as many times as it takes for you to ace it.

So for today I am grateful that my anxiety has passed. But more, that I know when I am afraid. And that I know better than to fear fear.

Posted in Inspiration, Life and tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
28 Jan 2012

Blessings of the curse

So I’m getting nervous. About what you think of me. Wondering if you’re feeling sorry for me. Think I’m a Debbie Downer. I feel like I’ve been giving you rather melancholy stories. All deep, and emotional. So I want to say, I swear to God, I’m a lot of fun at parties! (Not that I go to that many parties…But when I do – super fun!) I do, in fact, know how to tell light, funny stories. I’m quick, and I love to laugh. I am not all gloom and doom all the time. (Plus, I’m a fantastic dancer!)

The truth is, having the first 28 years of my life be difficult, and painful, and having eating disorders was perhaps the best thing to ever happen to me. If I had simply been mildly maladjusted, I may have been able to live with that. I may have had a “fine” life. (Of course, who knows?) What I can tell you, is that I was a miserable wretch with some serious food issues, and some serious behavior issues, and they were tied together. So to deal with one part, I had to deal with the other. And that offered me two beautiful gifts. The first is to know the glory of honesty, self-respect, and peace because I know the ugliness of dishonesty, shame, and desperation. To see that without the distinction of one set of experiences, I would not have either such a clear understanding of, or so much gratitude for the other. (I mean that going both ways.)

The second is the opportunity to live a life of deep, and ever-expanding integrity. Which is, by far, the most awe and peace inspiring experience I have ever had.

The truth is, I live with a relatively steady stream of low-level anxiety. I worry pretty much constantly. Sometimes, I’ll be getting a massage and I’ll be worrying about whether I silenced my phone. And what I will do if the phone rings in the middle of my massage. And if I should stop her now and make sure my phone is off. And sometimes I pray for it to ring so I know and I can turn it off. I worry about nonsense in the middle of the thing I do to relax!

But the worries I have now, are nothing like the worries I had when my eating was out of control. Now I worry about vagaries in the uncertain future. Nonsense, like my phone ringing at the massage place. Failure, like will I be able to get the 3-year-old I take care of to go to sleep.  And things I have no control over, like the MTA, or what you think of this blog. But none of these kinds of worries haunt me.

I used to worry about real things. Serious things. Things that eat at your heart. Lies I told. Ways I cheated. Things I stole. Broken promises. Lies told to hide broken promises. Things I said I would do and didn’t. Things I said I wouldn’t do and did. There was no relationship between what I said and what I did or how I felt. I did all of these things with the aim of making my life easier. And instead I made my life unbearable.

I am not saying that I live a life of perfect integrity now. I don’t even believe that is possible. Life is messy. I have many many messes I have yet to clean up. I have a bajillion glaring breaches in my integrity that I have not dealt with. I make new ones all the time. (It helps that, for the most part, I clean as I go now.) But I no longer believe I have the right to use dishonesty to make my life “easier”. My word means something to me. I honor it. I try to follow three rules. Do what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it. Be where you say you’re going to be when you say you’re going to be there. And tell the truth. This alone has eliminated an entire world of stress and upset for me. This has given me such a beautiful, easy, fun life!

No, seriously. I love my life! I look forward to waking up every day. I am regularly brimming with gratitude. All because I am not worried and haunted and filled with dread about all of the ways I dishonored myself and the people in my life. I love my life because I can look God in the eye.

There is a phrase I use that friends sometimes tease me about. A tag line, if you will. “I’m grateful.” I say it when someone holds a door for me. When someone gives me a compliment. When someone lets me pass them on a crowded sidewalk. When the barista hands me my americano. When the grocery store check-out person hands me my change. And I mean it! Truly and sincerely. I’m grateful.

I am grateful every day. I am a generally cheerful person. A bad start doesn’t mean a rotten day. A difficult situation doesn’t mean I can’t laugh about it. Or at least laugh about something. I have learned that when I don’t eat a bad feeling, it will pass. If I don’t eat a difficult situation, the answer will come. If I don’t eat to get through something, I will actually get through it. And what is on the other side is dignity. And self-respect. Which bring peace. What is on the other side is a really beautiful life!

So if you’ve been feeling sorry for me, don’t! Don’t feel sorry for me because I can’t eat chocolate anymore. Not because I was an unhappy kid. Not because I have a sensitive heart. I’m a joyful woman who is learning how to navigate life with peace, grace and gratitude. I am a woman who loves life! And I promise, I do not miss chocolate. Not even a little. Life is rich and sweet enough for me.

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