compulsion

yesterday was a weird day. my parents had a political rally/event at the county level to host and we had made about 3 large pans worth of brownies, blonde brownies, and lemon bars. earlier in the day,  I had done well with intuitively eating my way through breakfast and lunch (essentially). but when I got home from spending some time at the beach with my sister, my mom had sliced the bars and had saved the crumbs for us to eat. of course D didn't have any, but I felt extremely compelled to just go dive in. and so I did. and it was horrible because I knew from the first chocolate chip all the way until the final crust that I should not be doing this. I shouldn't be eating standing up, and even though I was hungry, I should really be asking my body what it wants. but for whatever inexplicable reason I felt entirely unable to get control and stop. I felt like I HAD to eat that food and I desperately didn't want to say no. so that was weird and threw me into a spiral of not wanting to workout or do anything self-caring, even though if I hadn't eaten them I would have been perfectly happy working out.

so that was that.

then came the evening I had been greatly anticipating and dreading for days. oh yes--the buffet style meal in which there would be endless amounts of food to partake in. I was worried I wouldn't be hungry to begin with, but I was, so that was good. And I pretty muchly only took what I wanted to eat and did sit down. That was okay. The problem came when I went back for more...and then more...and kept trying to sneak more and more food. I didn't actually get my hands on nearly as much as I wanted to or as much as this post probably makes it sound like I ate. but the problem I have, and what I still do not fully understand (and thus am trying to cultivate curiosity about) is what the hell was going on in my mind in relation to this food. its crazy how much during the meeting I felt so INSANELY possessive over the food that was present. like, literally, after some reflection last night, I think the best way to describe it is like watching your ex boyfriend sleep with hundreds of other girls, and some of them sluts, just like you. seriously, it was awful. I kept my eye on the table of food basically all night long. and whenever people would grab a helping of something I was so internally anxious and broken. I felt antsy, like I was only one knee jerk away from leaping from my chair and sprinting to go protect the desserts on the table. and then at the end of the night, while we were cleaning up, I was like,  oh my gosh--I can't let anyone take any of this food home! T and others would say, "alright guys--come get more food! don't make us take this all home!" and I wanted to cry and scream and push everyone away and just hover around my food. I felt like a mother protecting her children, her precious children, against vicious wolves.  I mean, there was even a point last night where I was playing out my full fantasy of being able to just be entirely, entirely alone with all that food in the field near the airport parking lot. and nothing had ever seemed more deliciously satisfying and lonely. what stupid, selfish, horrible images--and yet how telling. seriously, if this is how im feeling about something as simple as us making a lot of bars for a potluck/buffet dinner I need to sit up and look closer. clearly there is something a  hell of a lot bigger going on under the surface here that is causing me to react with such desperation. I mean last night when we got home I binged with dad basically on bars and cookies. then I woke up starving this morning and basically on autopilot went downstairs and binged a lot harder on the same bars and cookies. and im still planning to binge again when everyone leaves for the morning. so what's going on, dear? huh? what is causing you to do this?

I need to give it some more thought.