First, thank you to ALL the amazing loving comments and posts from my first journal. You all are honestly the only support I have for this thing. You are irreplaceable.
So I am starting a new journal, as I feel like I am starting a new phase of my recovery. One where I need to be completely honest with myself regarding my real reason for recovery, which is health and a normal relationship with food, NOT weight loss and putting off life until I get ‘thin’, or thinking I will be happy when I am ‘thin’ etc. I need to focus on my life, what makes me happy and what doesn’t, and healthy strategies for coping with all those problems and difficulties that come along with daily living.
I know that I am the only one who can change things for myself. No one else is going to make me binge, or stop me from binging except for myself. Binging does not solve any problems, but only makes them worse. Binging perpetuates the cycle, causing more binging, reinforcing negative coping mechanisms, negative thoughts, and the cycle continues.
What do I get from binging? Very, very, fleeting numbness, a time waster, a distraction, and a way to self punish. Binging causes me: weight gain, unhealthy habits, food obsessions, weight/body obsession, negative body image and self esteem, suicidal thoughts and self injury, physical sickness (for me stomach ache, nose bleeds, constipation, intestinal distress, bloating, gas), stealing food and wasting money, isolation and avoidance, poor hygiene, procrastination, and hypersomnia.
What triggers me? Weighing myself, comparing myself to others physically, stress, anxiety, trying on too tight clothes, letting myself calculate numbers of any kind (weight, calories eaten, calories burned), feelings of desperations. But recently, basically anything related to weight loss is my biggest trigger, I have been successful in the past in dealing with stressful situations without binging, but once I get in that cycle I use it for everything, but when out of the cycle it seems to kick back up mainly when some form of weight/weighing/clothes trying on, or self judgment about my body occurs.
I weigh myself and regardless of the outcome (gain or loss) it triggers me, my perfectionism makes me want more weight loss, thinking ‘oh I could have exercised more, or eaten less and I would have lost a more appropriate amount etc etc’. I am never pleased, and this just leads me to dissatisfaction and the b&w thinking overcomes me and says ‘well fuck it you might as well binge’.
I spent almost the entire past week sleeping as much as possible, only leaving my bed to pee or go get more food, laid around doing nothing but thinking about suicide and my waste of life and just generally feeling shitty and bad about myself. I AM NOT THIS PERSON. Why did I let this backslide happen? I weighed myself, despite losing weight got stuck in that b&w mentaility. Am upset about my life, school, and my defense being in 2 weeks, and I used binging as an escape, for feeling overwhelmed with school and life. But alas, it didn’t help me any, but pushed me back mentally.
I have reassure myself that I am a good person, that an action I take does not define me as a person, and the only person whose opinion of me matters, is my own. And if people don’t like me because of my body, then they are not a person I need in my life, and if people who are already in my life and decide they change their feelings towards me because of my new bigger body, then again, I do not need them in my life. The only person we have to live with is ourselves, and I can no longer hate that person, or feel bad about my body and damage myself both mentally and physically with the binging, I have completely isolated myself and torn up some potential friendships, and I can not live this way anymore.
Over the past 3 months, I have made huge progress and I just need to remember all that I have accomplished and move on. A bit of a relapse is nothing, it just shows me how awful that place is and how I do not want to ever go back there and how fragile I still am, how easy it can be to fall back, and how hard I have to work at this!
People have always told me how much they envy my will power, and since this thing started I don’t feel like that person at all, but I still am that person, I no longer subscribe to BED, I am done with being a self fulfilling prophecy and acting the part because I let BED define me, it DOES NOT define me, I define myself. I am a smart person who loves science, and evolutionary biology, and science education, I am a person who cares about other people unconditionally, who tries to live sustainably, who bikes and recycles and composts, who wants to grow her own food, and live a happy life, who goes back to her once daily yoga and meditation practices, I will be a person who loves herself, and is content with life.
I have finally made it over a day without binging. I am done with this thing, I am moving on, and I will continue to make progress and live my life, as I want it to be, not what I am waiting for it to be. Weight loss is not my focus, a healthy normal relationship with food, my body, and building healthy coping strategies is my goal. I need to learn to love myself, unconditionally and drop all the rest. Weight is not what is important in life.
Sorry so damn long. I love you all, and I will catch up on journals soon. It is going to be a rough few weeks, with trying to get my eating in control, and my defense coming up in less then 2 weeks!
This post is exactly the kind of mentality you need to have, and I KNOW you can follow through with everything you've said. you're right, you're so much more than the person who sits around bingeing and you deserve better than that! You're such a smart, self-aware, friendly and conscientious person and bingeing is just stifling that part of you. You can do this, just keep posting and we'll always be there for you no matter whether you're doing well or slipping up <3
