Last night, I had a truly awful night. I was upset, full of self-hating, and generally felt like I was completely empty inside and my life was a waste. I called myself a “fat sack of crap.” In fact, I called myself that twice. Aloud. I cried a lot, and felt like I’d rather be dead than go on with my miserable and useless life.
This morning, I thought about how truly empty and awful I had felt, and then I thought about the fact that I had no desire to fill that emptiness with food. I thought fleetingly about eating something to make me feel better, but that thought was extinguished immediately with the answer, it won’t change anything or make you feel any better. This wasn’t me talking myself out of eating. It was knowing the truth on a much deeper level than I’ve ever known it before. It simply was something I now embraced completely. Food wasn’t going to help. It wasn’t even the first thought to turn to food in my pain.
After I had this experience, I felt better because I knew some sort of change in mindset in regards to food had fallen into place. It isn’t a change I bullied myself into or had to brainwash myself into believing. It was just there all by itself. Food seems to finally be taking its proper place in my life as something other than an answer when I’m in pain. It’s so far off the radar as a source of comfort that it didn’t even come to mind last night and was a last thought discovered only after a scan of the periphery of my comfort-seeking radar.
I don’t feel deeply better today. Now, I’m more in a state of numbness, but I’m really happy to not have thought that food was going to fix things for me.
2 comments:
I had some strange moments of sadness and mourning when I realized that eating wouldn't help, at all. Not physically, not psychologically, not in any way. Like losing a best friend who had always been there for me. Like my ciggies, a huge psychological loss. But I got over it (mostly), though sometimes I still miss the ciggies.
I'm with you on the fruit, I love the stuff, but I have to eat with nuts, or after meals, it acts just like "they" say sugar does, makes me hungrier than eating nothing.
Hi, julie, and thanks for taking the time to comment. A lot of people talk about what they do to lose weight, but the psychological side is one that is neglected in favor of the lifestyle changes. I think that the emptiness you feel is something people tend to discuss only in forums devoted to talking about weight loss or weight loss support. We don't tell "outsiders" because it makes us seem weak, demented, or like what we may actually be - addicts.
It's easy to follow all of the steps to losing weight, but it's harder to shake the psychological ones. I think that they can sneak back up on us when we least expect it, and that's why it's so hard to stop smoking or overeating. You have to be mindful, and have done the hard introspection work.
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