It’s fairly easy to distrust people .Imagine if you can’t really trust your own body .
I can’t trust mine.
I’m hungry when I’m sad .I’m hungry when I’m happy. I’m hungry when I’m mad .I’m hungry when I’m thirsty, but also, just like others -I’m hungry when I’m hungry.
Because of that I need to eat regularly . If I don’t ,it all goes to shit.
Like yesterday for example. I ate my breakfast very late. It was more a brunch then anything else really, but I didn’t eat enough. I felt miserable ,almost the whole day , my neck was killing me ,and I was just sitting on my couch feeling sorry for myself. On the top of that ,my neck pain ,usually comes together with headache, because why not .
Time went by so quickly ,and before I knew ,I was busy making dinner .After dinner however ,I didn’t eat anything . Well almost anything .I ate two pears , bit of popcorn (butter free popcorn ) ,4-5 small Oreo cookies ,some waffles(no sugar) and some coffee and buckets of my favorite tea. I didn’t binge. Still, I end up going to bed hungry. My head was hurting me so much ,but since it was really late I thought I can manage without food. Why have I done that? Not sure, most likely it was a punishment -I failed to eat how I suppose to, so now naturally I deserve to suffer . I felt like crap .
Right now I’m not even sure why I thought it was a great idea to punish myself in this manner hmmm…. Anyway I promised myself that the next day I will do better.
I did good in the last 2 days .No binge . No secret eating. A little butter-well actually it’s hard to call it butter ,it’s light, good for people with high cholesterol ,have no taste ,but is full of Omega 3 oils which I heard are good for humans. I continue to use less milk .Coffee is always sugar free .
If I was not on my period right now, and in process of switching my medication levels, I could even dare to say that I do quite all right .
I was always told that I have no idea what real hunger means.
As a kid ,I was often forced to eat things, and I was surrounded with so much guilt because of it.
“You should be glad that you have food on your table “
“There are so many hungry kids in Africa and you are going to complain to me , that you don’t like the food or what is even worst, you ain’t going to empty the plate ??!?!?!?!?”
Followed with :
“You are ungrateful “
” You don’t love me “
“You are spoiled “
“You are horrible “
“It’s an insult for me, that you didn’t make your plate empty “
Most of the people who cooked when I was young were convinced that they are the best cooks ever. They were not bothered by cooking, and in their mind , I should be grateful that we have food at all ,since not everybody is so fortunate. This was their mantra.
My mom didn’t cook well at all. It was always the same food. She was never bothered. There was no real order in the kitchen. For example ,breakfast was only there on Sundays ,since my dad was not working on that day . The rest of the days were without breakfast. We did have sandwiches made for school, but it was more so others will not think , that my mother doesn’t take a good care for us.
My dad was into everything meat . Not the best example either ,but I must say It did change after he suffered from heart attack.
I often ate at my grandma’s. Mother of my mother. She was absolutely the worst.
She was making food that I didn’t always like. One time ,she made a soup ,that was simply horrible ,and I ended up vomiting it back on the plate. She forced me then to eat what I had vomited. I will never forget this and how it made me feel. She was so offended. I was staying at her house for about a week at that time, and she didn’t speak to me for several days. I was 5. In the end I was forced to apologize to her ,so she would speak to me again.
After all ,how did I dare not like her cooking???!!!
Since then I strongly believed that if it will ever happen next time, also with others – I can expect the same treatment .
Then came body shaming , food shaming ,bullying & even more confusion.
“Do you realized how many calories this has ??! ”
“Are you sure you are going to eat this ? “
“Why aren’t you as skinny as your cousin ?”
“Nobody will ever love you if you going to be fat “
The point was at that time -I was not fat. I was a not super skinny , but I was not as fat as I was made to believe. I was constantly compared with my cousin . Her body was nothing like mine . But this didn’t matter .The numbers matter . We were the same age ,so it was easy to say what our perfect weight should be . I always had kilo or two more than her ,and therefore -I was fat. Period.
I was about 5/6 years old then .That is also when my binge eating started.
The title of this post is “Hungry” Why ?
Because I’m very uncomfortable with this word. I’m hungry now , and just about to get some lunch. I decided to write something here to not feel so guilty about feeling this way.
My mind keeps on telling me stuff like -they will see you eating again ,they will judge you etc etc . So actually this post should help me to just pull myself together and eat my lunch like a normal human being without feeling bad about it. If I skip this meal ,I will binge later and I really don’t want that.
I was occupied the whole day yesterday. I didn’t binge. I have manage to stay away from baklava for a day.
You know, those 3 pieces that I could not shut up about in previous posts .
After all, they were in the fridge, unnoticed by the rest of the family. I didn’t eat them yesterday though. My first thought was, that my husband is going to find out. I wrote about it here. He was not able to see this blog yet, but once it happens, he is going to judge me. Everyone will judge me.
Today I broke.
This voice in my head was even more intense after I was done eating. “You can always tell him that it was covered with mould, so I throw it away” or “I didn’t want to be tempted so I throw it away “.Then I thought- maybe I should just throw it away ???? On the other hand, it is food, why would I throw away food??? Maybe I should give it to one of my family members? But wait, it’s not a healthy snack, so why would I give it away?
Fucking Baklava.
Overthinking is hell. Overthinking about food is sickness.
Writing here and starting this blog was an easy decision(probably the easiest decision I’ve made in a very long time).
I want to be honest here. No sugar coating.
I’m a mom, wife, friend, human. I’m also morbidly obese, diagnosed with depression, PTSD and eating disorder called BAD –Binge Eating Disorder .
First of all ,I don’t like how it’s called. In my personal opinion it doesn’t describe the seriousness of it. You can binge watch “Orange is the new black ” on Netflix, but binge eating?
I was not convinced.
I was also very very wrong ,and if you know me in person- YOU KNOW for a FACT that I absolutely hate to be wrong.
But anyway ,that was long time ago. Let’s focus on what is now.
I’m currently busy with my therapy and this blog is going to be an active part of it.
So let’s start day by day.
Day 1.
I had my therapy session in the morning.
We have talked about the last few weeks. They were pretty rough ,I binged a lot.
The last meeting before Christmas I find out that my cholesterol is very high. It was horrible to hear it . I was shocked . I cried the whole way back home. It was a wake up call. But hey, I don’t give up that easily ,so after I came back home I started with what I thought in my opinion were small steps- use less fat milk for example. Me, the milk lover. Then I decide to not put sugar in my coffee anymore. My dietitian told me to do it step by step ,but I got so scared, I panicked. My results are so bad ,I need to change immediately. It back fired later on with binge eating. That feels like shit. But before it feels like shit , It actually feels good . Not sure for how long it feels that way .When it happens ,time stops/or passes very fast.
I can’t hear anything around me. To explain it better – when I binge eat ,you can be standing in front of me, telling me that I have just won 600 mln $ and I will not hear it at all. I’m in my own safe bubble that my brain created specially for me.
The “fun” part starts after the bubble bursts .
If you want to see me when I think absolutely the worst about myself -that is the time to do it.
Few months back I would be considering vomiting ,because it will be like I didn’t binge at all. I can do it when the house is empty ,nobody will hear it ,so it’s like it didn’t happen. Perfect solution !
I still think about doing it sometimes. Like for example yesterday ,after eating enormous amount of cookies and baklava. I didn’t do it .I was able to convince myself that it was not a good idea. Vomiting doesn’t really make me feel any better. That’s when I actually think the lowest about myself .
Today I didn’t binge. It was a long day. I ate like I should. I used less milk in my coffee ,didn’t eat any cookies. I do know however, that there are 3 pieces of baklava in the fridge. I try not to think about them . There were 6 baklavas in that box. I ate 3 already a day before. How I am going to explain it to the rest ? I can eat it all by myself and then nobody will ever know that we had them in the first place…. but then, after that I will need to eat more. 3 pieces of baklava will not be enough.
It’s almost time to go to bed. I think I’m hungry. I might be just thirsty .I can’t stop thinking about food. It makes me feel sad that I think about it so much.
Heavy Side of Life 