I am making a return to blogging again because I need to find a way to communicate my thoughts and feelings on the things I experience, endure, and try to manage (and often fail at).
When I tell people I am having a bad day or a bad week, they seem to think I mean an appliance broke or I am just busy or something mundane like that. This can be really annoying especially when the people you tell this to know you have disorders that can wreak havoc on your life.
For me having a bad week is:
– Feeling like shit
– Not getting much sleep
– Hating myself
– Withdrawing
– Constantly wanting to cry and hide, and
– Wanting to eat every single food that will lead to my premature death and jaw rot.
For the past couple of years I thought I had the eating disorder portion of my life under control. I identified that sugar was a major trigger for bingeing and I was able to avoid processed sugars as much as I can and this, in turn, enabled me to avoid bingeing for the most part. I thought my job was done and this was all I needed to do in order to manage it. I could not have been more wrong if I tried. The problem with these kind of disorders is you don’t really notice that you are getting worse or behaviours are slowly reverting back to times you wished to leave in the past.
For me, this meant having the odd chocolate bar. This turned into regularly having sweet treats. I would be able to refrain for a week or two but the compulsion would soon be back. Eventually it evolved into the occasional entire 12 pack of cinnamon donuts from Woolworths. There was no way this was going to end well but the brain tells you its fine, its just this once, you have it under control, you deserve a treat, no one needs to know. You believe it because its your brain, not some literal devil on your shoulder. You start hoarding blocks of chocolates and packs of biscuits where your loved one won’t think to look or won’t accidentally come across it. At night time when the house is sleeping you creep into your office and pull out the open block of chocolate and ‘treat yourself’ in secret.
Keeping it from our loved one and emitting truths about what you’ve been eating and what youve been eating takes its toll. You start withdrawing from people and social interactions (well, withdrawing from what little interaction you were doing in the first place), your mood changes, and it is so slow and subtle that it doesn’t get noticed until it is too late. It feels like cheating…with food.
Before you know it, you find yourself rushing to Woolworths before work to stock up on the foods that give your brain the most joy and your heart the most distraction. You find yourself at your desk reaching into backpack full of your trigger foods that you are shoveling in until you feel sick and disgusting like a worker with a habit. That isn’t the end of it though. It is the climax of a catastrophe that starts the spiral downwards. You suddenly realise what it is you have been doing and how your brain has been lying to you. You have been lying to yourself without even realising it because it feels so true at the time. You think are fine, but you are not. Then begins the self loathing, beating yourself up, guilt, disgust, and wondering why you are such a nut job. Thus begins a cycle.
I have been through this many times in the past and have broken the cycle once before. So I must do it again. If I dont, I will die. Consumption of junk food at that level at frequent intervals can only lead to suffering and death. One think I have learnt from this relapse is this – Avoiding the trigger food is only the first step. My brain is a prison that seeks me to hodl it within its walls. If I am to survive past the age of 35 I must become the judicial system instead of the prisoner.
Delving Deep 
