I have decided to document this journey in a thread. After entering my meal on the foodie’s thread and then sitting down and mindfully eating through tears, many thoughts and feelings were coming up. I think sharing this could be valuable to others, and if not, then at least therapeutic for me.
Anyways I will start with a bit of a back story…
I grew up in a family of women with disordered eating. It has been passed down through the generations. From my grandmother to my mother to me. Maybe even before that, I don’t know. All I know is that calorie counting, food weighing, dieting, scales, complaining about weight, binging, and obsession with body appearance have been the norm. Hell, we even buy clothing a size too small, so we have a goal outfit. I know we aren’t the only ones…
I remember being very young, probably 4, and watching my mom get ready to go out on a date with my dad. I remember vividly sitting behind her on the bed as she put her earrings on. We were both looking at her reflection in the mirror. I was awe-struck by her, but she taught me very early on that what we see in the mirror is never good enough.
I started experimenting with purging when I was about 7. It, of course, escalated in my teens when I was introduced to the modeling industry.
While I was doing meth, my weight plummeted to 117 lbs on my 6-foot frame, and I had never been booked more in my career. This, of course, only fed my diseased brain. So when I cleaned up, was put on anti-depressants, and gained 100 lbs during my pregnancy, I lost my mind. Since then, it has been a constant battle of not eating so that I could drink my calories in alcohol. Manipulating Drs to give me medication to make me lose weight or give me a specific one that wouldn’t make me gain weight. Spending countless hours at the gym over-exercising, doing back-to-back spin classes, then going for a run, and adding in a hot core yoga class at night. I mean, if I went into details about the insanity of it… well, you’d all think I was insane.
Why do I do this to myself, one might ask…
I feel fear, legitimate fear.
A fear I will be judged.
A fear I won’t be accepted.
A fear I won’t be good enough.
A fear I won’t be liked.
While I ate today, the reason I cried was I thought about how much my body deserved to be fed, and it broke my heart. I have so much damage psychologically around this that I honestly don’t know if what I am doing is correct, but anything is worth trying. It would be beneficial if I work hard on my self-acceptance and self-love and let go of perfectionism. But, like the NA literature says, “That seems like a big order and we didn’t become addicts in one day, so easy does it.”
I am currently seeing an addiction specialist weekly for the next 8 weeks who knows about my eating disorder. She is not focusing on it instead we are talking more about how to eat to help my chronic pain. Also it is almost my turn for the 28 week DBT group so I think that everything is happening maybe at the right time, I will have some supports around if I need them. I feel strong in my substance recovery, I have an alarm set for my cycle so that does not sneak up on me anymore. I just really feel like I owe it to myself and my daughter to stop this generational disease if I can, so I will start, one friggen day at a time.