if you believe your pain will never end, you will act in any irresponsible, desperate way that could possibly bring even the slightest reprieve. intuitive eating was going extremely well for a few weeks there for me. i had had some slip ups, of course; things were not perfect but i was growing, i was learning, i was healing. and then Friday came. i was feeling bored, annoyed, lonely as hell, and just depressed. there was a relentlessly pissy mood that kept gnawing at me. and i had been trying for days to shake it off, breathe through it, welcome the feeling, even. i kept expecting it to eventually pass but it wasnt. and finally i just got so sick of it that i decided, to hell with it! i want to eat to be rid of this crappy mood! i justified that it was Friday and i finally had a day off at home with my family and i didnt want to ruin it by being crabby with people all day. so i checked out and binged. and binged. and binged some more with Mackenzie and Danae. and then i went to bed, feeling sick and disgusting and fat, but also fairly confident that Saturday would go differently. id go back to intuitive eating and things would return to normal. this was just a little desperation-caused mistake.
but that's not what happened. and i guess if i had given even the slightest of closer looks at the realities of my eating disorder history, i would have known that there is almost never an overnight change. no, coming back to a desire for sanity and health can take days or weeks after you slip into the coma of binging and purging. it does not happen after one bad day. it happens when youre $50 in debt over food and your pants dont fit and youre exhausted from getting up at 5 AM to go sneak the bag of vomit you produced while purging in your closet the night before to the outdoor garbage. ít comes when you have so many canker sores in your mouth from vomitting that nothing with sugar or salt sounds appealing anymore. that's when it happens. not when you've just sucked comfort and relief and ecstacy from your drug. no, you simpleton, no. it never comes then, never when you want it to.
and with that reality i find myself still, as of Sunday night, binging and purging my heart out. i have little to no desire to come back and feel pain. i think that realization was sort of what did me in on Friday. i was just like, enough! okay? enough! even if i can survive this pain and "feel" my way through it, the feelings still are here. and they hurt, they just.....hurt. and i dont want to hurt. i dont want to have to sit through feeling uncomfortable. why cant i just numb myself up? shoot up my brain with seratonin through cheesy potato wedges and mint heath shakes? i just want to get lost in the endless cycle of body hate and obsessing and sneaking that comes with numbing myself. why do i have to stay present and hurt? to what end?
i guess one thing i forgot then that ive sort of come to recall over the past few days here is that one reason it may be better to stay "awake" and alive with your pain vs. trying to run from it is that doing the latter doesnt actually make things ultimately better. i know, i know--you dont want to hear that or think about it, but it doesnt, Shannon. yes, you stop feeling the pain of the moment. i will give you that. it's a blanket-like way of canceling out anything and everything uncomfortable. but trust me, being full as hell all the time from overeating and never wanting to stop overeating despite having to face people/work/etc. is not fun. neither is having to drive from walmart to restaurant to public park bathroom to purge because youre so terrified of weight gain any fun. and for that matter, neither is having your body be so used to involuntarily purging that you end up just throwing up all over yourself while coming to a stoplight after you chugged a Mint Condition Cooler. that is not fun. and you will find even then that you're STILLLLLL unhappy, just now in different ways. you want to be hungry and enjoy meals but because you're so endlessly, compulsively driven to not face reality you can never ever pass up a chance to shovel in more food. so the pain still comes, only now you cant bear to face it, any of it, so you cant stop your behavior. your issues begin piling up like laundry.
but i think,...in the spirit of honesty, that this is exactly part of what appeals to me about having an eating disorder, part of why i can never let this thing go for good. id rather just worry about my ED that have to deal with real problems. real problems mean coming to the horrifying reality that i am not saved. and that how i am living and issues i face are signs of something deeply wrong with me. and i dont have any clue as to how and even begin engaging with Christ again. i am so mystified and scared at the thought of having to entirely surrender and change my life that i avoid thinking about it at all costs. i avoid reality. and that means i must avoid intuitive eating as well. i must stay stuck if i want any hope of coping...what a horrible realization.
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