Day 16: Thoughts on rigidity, chaos and "normal" eating

Another award! This was so kindly given to me by Amazon Runner, Diane at Fit to the Finish, and Katie J. I really feel I don't deserve it as I don't manage to post that often!

There are rules attached to this one:

Each person who receives it must link to the person who gave them the award

They must chose 5 deserving bloggers to pass it on to

They must display the award and link to this post which explains the award

They must add their name to the Mr Linky list on the above link so the originator can keep track of everyone who has received it

They must display the above rules

So many of the people who deserve this award have already been given it, so I have chosen people who to my knowledge have not received it yet. I would like to pass this award on to:

Green Stone Woman who posts at least once a day and is always a good read,

Amy at The not so secret life of a not so super together mom - who has raised many interesting food issues on her blog and written beautifully about her mental state,

Sean at The Daily Diary of a Winning Loser - I admire his determination to post every day whatever, and how does he find so much to say?!

Wendy at New Me: A Fresh Start - I might not always agree with what she says, but it's always interesting and challenging (for me) and highly relevant for anyone dealing with their relationship with food.

Jogging Auburn at Quest for a Mile - her posts are just so beautiful! She hasn't posted for a little while now so I hope she'll start again soon.

All the above are in my bloglist. And I have still not passed on my Best Blog Award! Next time ...

So, about the diet. I have completed day 16 and all is going well so far. I hit my target of walking 4 times last week and have 1 walk under my belt this week, done on Sunday (my diet week running from Sun to Sat). I had a very active day today walking and actually running part of the way to my healer (because I was late!) for 35 mins and then I walked for an hour afterwards. But I don't count it as an official walk unless it's at least 1 1/2 hours continuous walking. My eating has been spot on and despite many times over the past week when I felt very down I haven't even really wanted to "depression eat". I have had occasional bingeing thoughts but have dismissed them quickly from my mind because I know so well how "fantasy bingeing" has a tendency to turn into the real thing. The only thing I am still struggling with is getting to bed on time. It's certainly much better than it was but I have still had a couple of 2.30 bedtimes and one 3am which is obviously way off what it should be. But I'm going to continue trying on that one. I also haven't yet built up my toning exercises. I'll get there!

But overall I'm very happy that my good eating and exercise routine is nailed in place. It feels so much better waking up after a day of clean eating compared to the horror I have felt every morning for the past few months of waking up after another day bingeing. Literally horror. I have of course still felt very depressed and low during the last 2 weeks - because I'm suffering from depression aside from my eating. But I don't feel I'm in chaos anymore because my eating is not chaotic. I don't have that circling, behind the scenes terror about what I'm doing to myself with eating ridiculous amounts of food. I'm not filled with anxiety about being out of control and not knowing how I'm going to stop it. So the difference in my mental state is dramatic. I feel so much calmer.

And I am just so grateful that I'm not really struggling to stick to my healthy eating regime. It is not a battle. If it were a battle then I wouldn't be succeeding. I don't have very much willpower at my disposal as concerns my eating. I do and can force myself into doing the walking. That does require quite a bit of determination - just to get out there due to my agoraphobia, and in the cold windy wet weather. I have willpower there. But I don't believe I have that much with eating.

For me there are two states of being with eating (since I had a breakdown) which are eating in a very repetitive rigid pattern or eating totally chaotically. I seem to have moved from the latter to the former. But I don't know how.

Today I read on Leslie's blog about her desperation to pack in the bingeing that's been plaguing her weight loss efforts for some while now. She asked for suggestions on this and several people have written interesting comments in response. Vickie's suggestion was that Leslie should only eat at home or if out, only eat food she had prepared herself. So to keep complete control over her eating. I had made a similar suggestion to Leslie the day before about nailing a healthy eating pattern in place and not deviating from it except for the coming actual holiday days. What I was meaning was something very similar to what Vickie suggested ie to 100% plan her eating - what to eat and at what times, and stick with it no matter what. But I didn't push the idea because I was worried that what I was suggesting was as much disordered eating as her existing bingeing pattern.

Keeping to a very rigid repetitive structure is the only way that I myself can cope with food, and I'm very aware that this is not "normal". It is the flip side of chaotic eating - total rigidity and routine. It also has many problems associated with it - such as never being able to have any spontaneity, never being able to eat out, the tendency that if I do step out of my pattern I'm in real trouble - I can't handle it at all and may end up bingeing/ compulsive eating for months before I regain control. I wouldn't want anyone else to suffer this of course.

So how can I make such a suggestion? Shouldn't we all be aiming for sane eating? Is it wrong to aim for anything other than that? On the other hand, sanity for me can only be found in sticking to my trusted routine. That is where my safety and sanity exist. And what is normal eating anyway? I saw an obesity surgeon on TV not so long ago and when his team stopped for lunch everyone got out their tupperware boxes and tucked into their sandwiches. He pulled a can of tuna out of his pocket and that was his lunch. His mantra was "Never eat anything beige!" ie no cakes, biscuits, pastry etc. He was very thin of course, but judging by the faces of his colleagues, they all thought he was nuts. I have to say that seeing this man eating a can of tuna for lunch everyday to the derision of colleagues made me feel that my eating wasn't so weird after all. This guy was essentially saying that what we consider to be "normal eating" is the reason why 2/3 of adults in this country are overweight or obese. He was unashamedly abnormal in his eating.

So to come back to Leslie, is rigidity the key? A zero tolerance approach to eating outside of set meals she has prepared herself? I honestly can't say. It would be great to get the weight loss going again, for sure. But what about all the socialising involving food? With buffets one can just abstain, but sit down meals with friends and family? Work socials? Also, how long would it last? This is something that needs a solution for life, not for a few months.

But this is the stuff that everyone who wants to lose weight faces. Saying no when other people are gorging away right in front of you. Saying no to yourself when you want to eat chocolate cake (I'm even frightened to type that food!) Saying no to yourself when you are hungry. In other words, taking control. Generally you only get to have a serious weight problem by being out of control so the only way to rectify it is to be very much in control.

So it's all about finding a type of control over your eating that you can live with. For Sean for example it's about eating all his favourite foods whether healthy or not so healthy. He eats it as long as it's within his calorie budget. For me it is about eating the same food at the same time every day.

Of course control over your eating is only tackling one end of the problem and Lori-Ann made a great comment to Leslie's post about thinking how she would deal with life after she had lost her weight - what would her mission be then? And the anxiety that accompanied these thoughts.

Eating to plan in no way addresses issues such as how you will live your life as a thin person, fear of change in body size or any emotional issues that keep you clinging to your extra poundage. But if it means you can live less chaotically then you might just have the time and space in your mind to address the other issues rather than have your life dominated by bingeing hell.

Responses

Hi Guys. Sorry once again for inflicting all that shit on you last time. Strangely more people "tuned in" and read that post than any other ... well, a cheery title like "Toxic brain dump" really pulls in the punters don't y' know! And I want to sincerely thank the people who left a comment. I realise I made it tough for you because I left very little room for hope in there. Very little that people could respond to. Most of those who did said that clearly I am depressed and need meds. Or possibly could I turn to faith to help me through this. Both valid suggestions.

I certainly don't dispute that I am suffering from major depression. But I can tell you that I've tried every anti-dep going and none has been any good, either due to side effects or lack of efficacy. The one I was on the longest, Lofepramine is highly toxic and had little positive effect. It also caused me to reach my highest ever weight due to the fact that it lowers blood sugar, and blood pressure and slows you down so much that life becomes one long grinding exhaustion. The main way it "worked", if at all, was simply to slow down my thinking, thus I would have fewer thoughts per hour, thus fewer depressing thoughts per hour, thus be less depressed. Talk about being sledgehammered! I had to give it up due to the damaging effect on my kidneys. It also made me agoraphobic, a known side effect of this med. I was agoraphobic from the first tablet I took. I carried on taking it for as long as I did because I was desperate and there were really no other choices. I haven't been able to tolerate anything else. My psychiatrist told me some years ago that I was out of meds. Nothing left to try.

So I am now going through this unmedicated. But that doesn't really bother me I have to say. Even when I was on tablets the side effects were so bad I couldn't lead any kind of normal life anyway. So I wasn't any further forward.

Ultimately meds, if they worked and if I didn't have side effect problems, would only be covering up the pain, a band aid on the situation. They cannot solve the root cause. The root cause being that when I had my breakdown in 2000 I lost my self. I lost my personality. I lost who I was. No tablet can give me my self back.

That's why psychiatry has been no help to me at all. There is no diagnostic category for "person with no personality". In fact I have never really been able to get a psychiatrist to even understand the position I am in. They just don't seem to "get it". Or maybe they do but simply have no answer.

There is no way I've found of deliberately reforming a personality. Well, you may say what about psychotherapy? Therapy of course is designed to help people explore parts of themselves and make adjustments in personality. It depends on you having a personality in the first place to make the adjustments to.

I've been very lucky (or maybe not so lucky) to have had extensive individual therapy on the NHS: psychodynamic psychotherapy, creative art therapy, cognitive analytic therapy (CAT), psychoanalysis (a lot of which was twice a week). Not to mention groups run by the local health trust - stress, creative art therapy and relationship groups. I've also attended independent self help groups for depression and social anxiety.

I'm not stuck like this for lack of effort! This thing has had everything thrown at it. And I still really feel like no-one who's ever treated me has really "got it" or understood what I needed. But then I have no solution either. One therapist said to me that my previous learning (in psychology) must have been really useful to me when I had my breakdown. Sadly not. You can't study what it feels like to have a breakdown or have no personality.

Mainly therapy has simply increased my instability and pain. The only one which did have a slightly positive effect was the CAT which I actually found quite empowering. But it is a fixed short course of therapy (unlike the others) and I feel I needed much much longer for it to have made any lasting positive impact. I also don't think it was the type of therapy per se which had the effect, but the therapist herself. If I could have had a year with her then maybe the outcome would have been more beneficial. And that's one of the problems on the NHS, you don't really get to chose your therapist. You just get who you're given. Of course you can turn down a therapist, but then you're back on the waiting list 'til who knows when.

My last lot of therapy - the psychoanalysis (which ended summer 2008) - was the most damaging. It plunged me into total chaos again. Which is where I was until spring this year. Now I'm simply back in nowheresville.

And still they keep it coming! They are now offering me a three year package of individual psychotherapy, group therapy plus fortnightly support group meetings to run concurrently (as the judge always says). I jokingly said to the Head of Psychotherapy, "So I get out of jail when I'm 40 then??!!" She didn't really appreciate it.

I've turned it down so far as just being too much to take on at the moment. Given the lack of any progress in the past it just seems ridiculous to carry on doing something that only makes me feel worse. It's still on the table though. Mainly because it's the only thing they have to offer me now.

I'm gutted that therapy was so useless for me. I was a true believer in it. I started studying psychology all those years ago because I actually wanted to be a therapist myself. What a joke! I find it hard to sustain any belief in it at all now. I've never known anybody who was seriously mentally ill actually benefit from it. Obviously I can see it may be of some use for people who merely need to make personality adjustments. But that ain't me.

The other suggestion made by some was about faith. I am an atheist. But at this point I'd like to thank those people who said they'd keep me in their prayers. I do appreciate that. I wish I did believe in god because then when I was awake in the middle of the night I wouldn't feel alone. It's wonderful to feel that there is a being of some sort looking over you, taking care of you etc. But belief is belief and not pretending to believe. It's not something you can fake in my opinion.

Strangely enough I did believe in god for the first 18 months after my breakdown. I mean totally believe. I went from being a complete atheist before to a complete believer. There was no doubt in my mind. But I was able to believe in god for that time because I was completely not myself. It was as though a line had been drawn down on my life and everything I was before was alien to me. I couldn't even begin to understand that person anymore. After those first 18 months I came out of that initial headspace and was then unable to believe anymore.

I do believe however in spirit guides due to my own experiences and the healing I have received. But a spirit guide, to me, is a guide that helps you get where you want to be, if it is possible. They don't show you the way, or answer your wishes/ prayers. They don't have the all encompassing power supposedly had by god. They can't show me the answer to my problems.

I say I believe in guides but I don't claim to understand how this thing works. I have no knowledge about my guide.

Well, that's all got a bit deep hasn't it!

I did feel a sense of relief for having got all that shit out last time - so thank you for reading it. It's weird that it makes a difference to have put it out there in public, rather than just writing it down for myself - which I have done many times previously. I don't know why it makes such a difference though.

I can see for example the extent to which I am hung up on not being able to have a "normal" or "proper" job. Really hung up on that. But now it occurs to me I will just have to hope in the future to find something I can do working on my own/ for myself.

I had reached a stage of feeling that there's no point in trying anything in any sphere anymore. But now I think I'm just going to have to try for the best quality of life I can - which is certainly higher than I have right now ie stopping bingeing and getting back on an even keel with my eating and blood sugar level. This would be beneficial on every level. My behaviour, while not deliberate of course, is only making things much worse. Like Fitcetera says, "stop doing what hurts".

I will have to think for much longer to come up with an answer as to how I can be me again. Any suggestions ....? All thoughts gratefully received.

In the meantime, there was no washing this Tue due to work going on in the basement so I was let off the hook! So no bingeing on Tue or Wed. The bad news is that I binged continuously from the Thursday - Monday before that.

My healer also sent me a card which arrived on Wed. A beautiful card with a lovely message in it. I was able to ring her after that and made an appointment for 2nd Nov to go and see her. Maybe having that goal will help me get myself together a bit.

I think the best thing I can do from here is to a) think how I might go about reforming my headspace into something useful which will enable me to lead a happier more productive life, and b) try (yet again) to improve my physical health by eating healthier and slowly building up my walking time.

So thanks for all your input. I am feeling slightly more positive now. Only slightly mind ...

Shame and Guilt

Firstly I want to thank all those people who left such excellent comments to the last post on shame. They are definitely worth a look if you haven't already. To give you a flavour: Natalie (my kashi diet) felt that she was rarely motivated by shame whereas Amy H. (no to the deuce) thought that shame serves a positive purpose in society and had motivated her to lose weight. Pamela, who was the original inspiration for that post, made the distinction between guilt and shame and left a link to Brene Brown's site http://www.brenebrown.com/watch-video-excerpts/ which has three videos discussing these issues. I found them illuminating. Brene's definition: "shame is this intensely painful feeling or belief that we are flawed and somehow inadequate and unworthy of connection [with other people]". Her basic thesis is that shame acts to disconnect us from other human beings and is highly correlated with continuing bad or destructive behaviours, whereas guilt is about wanting to put right what we have done and therefore about reconnection. Leslie (something brilliant is brewing) summed it up perfectly in her comment "shame is not productive ... it is destructive and perpetuates self-hating behaviours. Guilt or even regret can motivate self reflection and eventual change. Shame sends me to despair about WHO I am, not WHAT I've done."

In writing that last post I was trying to deal with the crushing shame I have felt recently over my eating behaviour and consequent appearance. Shame has certainly acted as a motivator for me to lose weight in the past. I would reach the point where I felt such intense shame over my appearance that the only way to ease it was to get off my butt and get dieting and walking to lose the weight. And as I was walking I would be thinking every step of the way about how great it would be when I could go out in public again and not feel ashamed of myself and my appearance. So shame can be a positive motivation if it is about reconnecting with others.

But on the other hand if the ONLY way you can be acceptable to others is by being thin then ultimately this is not a positive thing. And this is the down side of the way that I used shame as my motivation. I felt (and still feel) that I am unworthy of connection with other people unless I look as perfect as I possibly can. This is a legacy of my family's ethos that I have no right to exist unless I am perfect. This is a situation in which I can never be worthy of existence as of course no-one is perfect.

It would be much better for me to feel that I was acceptable to other people based on my personality, SOH, caring etc rather than my weight. To echo Leslie, my self worth should be based on WHO I am rather than what I weigh. And in that sentence is the whole problem. That who I am is essentially a flawed, unlovable and unlikable person - according to my family at least. So in the end all I had left was trying to look good, to make the outside as good as it could be because the inside was never going to be worth anything anyway. So this is how I have come a cropper. When I was unable ever to feel thin enough (see 16th sep post) I was f*cked.

To feel worthy of connection with other people must be about the inside of me, not my appearance. This is the way forward.

And guilt? After noting Brene's ideas about the positive effect of guilt I realised that I have never felt guilt or anything approaching it over my eating. Not ever. Why? Because I could never feel guilt about hurting myself; I am just not worth it. I thought, OMG, is there something majorly wrong with me; am I some kind of psychopath incapable of feeling guilt? But no, I feel terrible guilt if I ever even accidentally hurt anyone else. But to feel guilt about hugely destructive behaviour towards myself is an alien concept to me.

The best thing here then (if you're still with me!) would be to love myself and care about myself and therefore feel guilt for feeding myself total rubbish and making myself fat and feeling ill all the time and reducing my quality of life to nil. Then to resolve to feed myself better and get some exercise so I can enjoy life and feel healthy. This is the ideal. This is what I should be aiming at.

In the meantime guilt over the fact that my bingeing has hurt someone else is at last proving a motivator to turn this thing around and get myself going again. And at this point I'm glad to have this motivation.

Here's the story: a healer who I used to go and see weekly at her house had sent me several texts over the last few days trying to reach out to me as I haven't been to see her while I've been in this current crisis (2 1/2 months now). But I didn't get them because of a problem with my phone. Then last night all the texts suddenly arrived and I felt SO GUILTY. She said how worried she was about me, she missed me and she wished we could talk. There were three texts like this. I felt so bad that she has been worrying over me and feeling upset, even though it wasn't my fault the phone isn't working properly. I feel so upset that this connection with such a sweet, caring person has been broken due to all the bingeing and excessive eating I've done recently. I cried and cried over it and am still crying now.

So this is my motivation to get better. So that I feel able to go and see her again. She is so good to me and sends me healing when I don't see her. She is a true friend and I am hurting her by staying away. I have to stop all the bad eating. I HAVE to get healthy enough to walk up the very large steep hill where she lives.

The shame over my behaviour has not been enough to stop me this time - it has just made me feel very bad about myself and caused me to hide away from other people. But the guilt over hurting someone else really makes me want to change.

I wrote her a letter today apologising about the phone and about not being in contact with her, and the florist will deliver it tomorrow evening with a large bouquet of flowers.

I AM going to repair the damage I've done - for her sake and ultimately for mine too.

Is it rude to tell a complete stranger to Google Sean Anderson?

Hi Guys. I was in my local store a couple of evenings ago and saw a guy looking around the shop with a sort of wild look on his face. He looked at me with this weird expression for a few moments and at first I was worried he was looking at me in particular because I'm such a mess - unwashed hair with massive roots showing, glasses on, - haven't worn my contact lenses since this bingeing episode started weeks and weeks ago - and pudgey face. Then he looked away and I was grateful and got on with making my selections. It was only afterwards I realised this guy was looking round quite wildly because he was frightened. And I realised that I often do what he was doing when I go anywhere where there are other human beings; looking to see if anyone is looking at how bad I look.

I've never seen him before, but he looked like a well to do 40 something businessman with a smart shirt and trousers on. So the reason for his fear? He was only a whisker away from bursting the seams on everything he was wearing. I've never seen a man wearing such tight clothes ever before. He was only getting the trousers done up with a very tight belt round the waist which created a large dent in his rotund figure. He was obviously very embarrassed about his size. He must have put on quite a bit of weight fairly recently and not yet upsized his clothes. I really felt for the guy - my trousers are particularly tight over the butt right now and I am in very tight belt territory myself. And afterwards I did think, would it be rude to tell a total stranger to Google Sean Anderson?

What can I tell you? I have been bingeing on chocolate, crisps, sandwiches and a few muffins since Friday night. Yesterday I felt OK during the day, let off the hook, freedom to eat what I want. I felt good. But today, of course, I feel not so good.

I managed to wash my hair - which I hate doing because it's half an hour bent over the sink with my hands above my head. But I got through it quite easily yesterday. I still have to dye it. That job takes over 2 hours altogether. I need to get it done tomorrow - I don't feel up to it today. I need to have clean hair but also a slight layer of grease on my scalp to protect my skin from all the chemicals. Otherwise all the skin flakes off my scalp. I use a herbalish dye - Herbatint - which has less chemicals than most dyes and is safe for use in pregnancy and chemotherapy - but I still end up with a swollen face afterwards. It's much less worse than the usual chemical dyes though - with those I always have nasty spots on my face afterwards as well as the swelling, and feel that it takes 48 hours for all the poison to be processed out of my system.

The downside with Herbatint is that it takes a long time to "take". At least 45 minutes. Because I have long hair it takes 15 minutes to put it on, then the 45 min wait, then rinsing it out, then washing with the special neutralising shampoo (essential otherwise the hair has a funny texture afterwards), then conditioning (again essential) and final rinsing. So that's a whole hour of rinsing, washing, rinsing, conditioning, rinsing. A whole hour of being bent over with my hands over my head. Horrible. But necessary. What we do for "beauty" eh? Ha ha!

I have often thought about having my hair cut short so I could wash it so much easier, but I've never done it. Big hair is great for "hiding" behind, and for balancing out a big body.

I've found a local OA group which meets on Thursday evenings. I'm going to ring the co-ordinator tomorrow. As long as she expects me to turn up then I will feel duty bound to do so. It's always easier for me to get out when I'm meeting someone.
They also hold art classes at the same venue so I'm going to get the info on those too. The Autumn term should be starting soon.

I feel quite positive about the prospect of doing these new things. But tomorrow when I try to put my trousers on it'll be a different story ...

Shattered

Caution: I am aware that we are under a full moon tonight. If you are feeling bad at the moment then please DO NOT READ ON. I am not writing this post with the intention of making anyone else feel bad, but just for myself and to let you know how things really are in my life.

So tired today. Got a migraine trembling on the edge. Thing behind the eyes going on and headache. No doubt carb induced. Been going on for hours now and I don't know if it's going to go full blown or not. About 10 years ago I used to get them regularly and would be in bed for 3-4 days with a bad one. But since then I've had probably no more than a handful and probably only one full blown.

I am feeling wrecked. Total wreckage.

Needless to say I didn't make it to healing as I haven't been out today.

Part of this exhaustion is because I was out for quite a few hours yesterday. And part is a carb hangover. I have just eaten totally to excess the last 3 days. I am aching all over from it. I have eaten so much that the food is coming out the other end only partially digested (no laxatives involved). I will never feel the same way about muesli again ...

I had to go out because I had an appointment with my CPN. She was glad to hear that I haven't been suicidal since our last meeting 2 weeks ago. That meeting was with the head of the psychotherapy department to see what they might be able to offer me. I told them I had been seriously suicidal in the previous few weeks of bingeing hell. I actually contacted Dignitas, the Swiss euthanasia clinic, after reading their website to see if they could help me. They do offer their services for people who are not terminally ill, and have in the past helped people with mental illness to kill themselves. But under Swiss law they need to have it signed off by a psychiatrist and currently they don't have anyone working with them who can do this. The return email said I should keep in touch in case the situation changes.

I thought about Dignitas because it is a safe way to kill yourself ie you are guaranteed to die. The only thing that stops me doing it myself is the high chance of ending up damaged or disabled rather than dead, guns not being readily available in this country.

When I told The Bear about my emailing them he said it was a waste of money and I could save the estimated 7,000 pounds and kill myself for free! I hasten to add that most of the money does not go to Dignitas themselves but is legal, mortuary, post mortem, cremation, etc fees. There's a hell of a lot of paperwork when someone goes through this process.

I really admire the the spirit of Dignitas. To give people the freedom to make their own choice in a safe humane way. Their work is brave indeed and I am very grateful that they are there. They face continual battles to keep the service going and I hope they will keep on with it.

Meanwhile, re the therapy, I have already, over the years, had psychodynamic therapy, cognitive analytic therapy, and psychoanalysis. So now the nice lady is offering me a programme of group therapy plus individual therapy. I can honestly say that therapy has never helped me at all to date and I'm not desperately keen to do anymore. But what else is there? I can't do ADs due to side effects so this is all that's on offer. There is nothing else.

This is why I was suicidal recently. Because I can see no way forward from here.

I suppose since that meeting - which ended simply with a decision to meet again at the therapy department in three months time - I have felt there might be something in the future. But I don't know.

I know some will say this is evidence that I shouldn't take my own life as things may improve. But I have been in this hell for so long already. I can't see that my life will ever be worth living.

I hasten to add that I'm not suicidal right now - which may be due, in part, to the 5-HTP I am taking, as well as the (very) faint possibility that some treatment in the future may make a difference.

Re food: The really frustrating thing is that I know my body wants, indeed is crying out for veg, salad, fish and fruit. Yet I still can't eat it for some reason. I am listening to my body - well I could hardly miss it as it's screaming at me - but I'm unable to respond in the appropriate manner. Why am I so unable to take care of myself?


BTW Sorry my formatting collapsed in the previous post. I pressed a wrong button and couldn't undo it no matter how hard I tried.

A Bad Day

I went out early today to do my shopping - and didn't find it too difficult to get out or be out. When the agoraphobia isn't 100% full on, I can manage very early, before most other people are around, or very late. It's just the 12 hours in between that I have the problem with.

Anyway, I've been so worried recently about not getting out and continually running out of food, that I made sure I wouldn't run out in the near future by buying loads and loads and loads. I think you can probably already imagine the rest before I tell you ...

A lot of bloggers complain that they are good all day and then binge in the evening. But I'd say although it's bad to binge any time of the day or night it's much worse to binge first thing in the morning because then your blood sugar is kaput for the whole day.

And yes Chris I do that multiple slices of toast with sugar free jam thing too. So I'm typing with jammy fingers. My laptop will suffer a certain amount of crumb infiltration if I'm not careful now ...

Just searched for "adult education (my town)" and came up with

"Naughty (my town) Wifes [sic]

Husband Out For Work: You In For

Naughty Pleasure. Join For Free"

Is that educational? Sadly I'm not married.

Anyway, why the binge? A certain amount of domestic stress - I won't go into the details. This is really annoying; that any even fairly medium sized stressor can set off the bingeing. I've only had about 3 hours of sleep each of the last two nights which is a very bad sign in retrospect.

The only good I can draw from this is that most of the food I've been eating is not of the fatty and/or sugary variety. The one or two items of fatty food that I did have provided no "hit" for me. I was surprised that I didn't really enjoy them. This is due to breaking the fatty food addiction with orlistat. I ate the fatty and sugary things first of course and then threw about half back up and took orlistat for what was left to ensure that addiction didn't take hold again. But I still have a bad carb thing going on.

For the rest of the day I've been compulsively eating (without any vomiting) low fat carbs - multiple bowls of muesli, bananas, dates, sandwiches, large quantities of crumpets and toast with half fat soft cheese and all fruit spread ... Definitely better than the stuff I was eating in the previous bingeing weeks. But still way way way too much; leading to several hours this afternoon of scary severe stomach pain followed by near diarrhea.

With the physical consequences of this behaviour being so bad - not forgetting of course the obvious weight gain - it just hammers it home yet again that this is a mental illness. My body definitely doesn't want me to do all this to it. Yet at the time it was the only way of dealing with my stress, anxiety and depression. I did consider taking a tranquilizer - I have a few left over from some dental treatment I had last year - but it didn't appeal. Would have probably been the better thing to do though I'm thinking now.

The previous evening I had dealt with the stress by drinking alcohol. Better than eating and don't worry I'm in no danger of being an alcoholic - I can't tolerate very much alcohol at all. I only had about 3 units worth. I did consider - at least I was considering the other options to eating I'm thinking now - I did consider having a drink this morning but couldn't do it. My body just doesn't like alcohol that much. But then it doesn't like vast quantities of food that much either lol!

Hopefully, as the stressor has now receded, I will calm down in the next few days and manage to reduce my food intake to where it was. I had hoped to get back to my diet this week, but as I have to cut down gradually I can't see myself getting there until next week now which is really pissing me off.

All I can do is try to stay calm and keep going....

Tough weekend

Today my mood is totally different to my jubilation on Friday. It has been a tough weekend. I feel like what happened on Friday was almost supernatural. Like not me at all. That I was very guided to doing what I did. I'm sure I felt so good because I was sent a lot of healing that day. The people who give the healing are so good to me. Someone always send me healing on Friday morning to help me get there. And on the rare occasions when I don't turn up they always send me plenty of healing.

It was a brilliant day, both for eating, being able to ignore my hunger and feel OK about it, and for the fact that I now have a totally useable, ultra clean fridge and freezer!

But obviously eating so eating much less for one day was bound to have a knock on effect. The carb monster has been on me ever since then. I tried to hold off but I couldn't. I was back to the 6 bowls of Readybrek on Saturday.

Friday made me realise how much this thing is in my head. That when I'm in the right place in my head I can control my eating - ignoring my hunger, making good decisions, and using tablets to help control cravings if necessary. Chris said something very insightful in her Thurs comment - that my agoraphobia is probably so bad because I am trying to tackle my eating problems. I think this is true. I'm seeing how much I have been "self medicating" with food; eating to cover my depression and anxiety.

When I'm in bingeing mode, every time I feel bad, I eat to feel better. Feeling bad emotionally is the prompt that tells me it's time to eat. I treat that feeling as though it's hunger. And this pattern is so difficult to get out of. Because when I feel bad I have no response to that if I'm not using food as my way of dealing with it. Hence I have been crying and feeling down and depressed the last couple of days. Grimness.

I have on previous occasions been through this pain when "coming off food", and it involves lots and lots of crying. I suppose, as with all addictions, this is a withdrawal effect. It seems to be especially bad in the first 2 weeks, and up to 4 weeks after "giving up" food. This tells me that it doesn't go on forever. It is only a few weeks. But I don't think I can deal with it at the moment. It's too much.

I've considered if I should try taking anti-depressants (ADs) so that I am dealing with the depression that way. But this would be a difficult path for many reasons. Firstly that ADs take 2-4 weeks to get working so I would have had to start them a while ago. If I had fully cottoned on to what was going on here, I could have looked at that way of dealing with it. But I wasn't so clearly aware as I am now. The awareness has come from writing all this down. I have never written or spoken about this stuff before hardly at all. Let alone just letting it all hang out here!

I could've spoken or written about it before but I've always been scared to do that because when I've attempted it, it's only made the problem worse. Just as adverts for food, recipes or articles in magazines, seeing people eat on TV etc can set me off bingeing, then talking about it always seemed to be an immediate trigger. It brought it to the front of my mind, like full on danger, red light flashing, total terror. So I shutdown that possibility. I couldn't cope with it. It was just too dangerous to talk about.

I'm not saying I could talk about it now - I don't know at the moment. But writing about it and even more importantly, reading other people's experiences, has really started to get all this in perspective for me. Provided a safe way for me to think about it. In fact I've thought about very little else recently.

So this is the power of blogging!!!

It's not just the reading, but also the suggestions make me think about why for example I can't buy my shopping over the internet and get it delivered as Chris suggested. I have, of course, sometimes thought about this. But now I really have to think about it because I want to give a response back when someone has taken time to think about my situation and make suggestions and write a comment. Whereas when it's just in my head, I can let it go. When I am not accountable to anyone else - (and lots of people have written about setting up a weight loss blog to be accountable) - then those thoughts can just be left, can drift away. But now I have to think, "Why can't I allow myself to have some shopping delivered?" Is it because that would be making things too easy for myself? Is it just because I haven't done it before? Is it because the cost of about 5 pounds to have it delivered seems ridiculous when there are shops just round the corner? Or is it because I'm not worth the 5 pounds? I'll let you know when I work it out.

Back to the issue of ADs. I have tried them before but the side effects were always really bad. I couldn't tolerate any SSRIs - like prozac or citalopram. I was on the tricyclic AD Lofepramine for 3 1/2 yrs but gave it up end 2005 as the side effects became too overwhelming. Tricyclic ADs are very toxic. The strain on my kidneys (which took 6 months to return to normal after stopping them), the low blood pressure coupled with low blood sugar totally ground me down the whole time. My hair went prematurely grey because of those tablets (kidney function problems). So in the end I didn't have much choice. Also tricylclics cause weight gain. I was my highest ever weight on Lofepramine. So not what I want in that respect either.

I am taking 5-HTP tablets at the moment - one a day last week and now I've started taking 2 a day. It's a nutritional supplement which is converted by the body into serotonin - the neurotransmitter that ADs seek to potentialise. Works much quicker than ADs - you feel the effects from the second day. When I stop taking it I will cry for a day or two. But the withdrawal is no longer than that, so much better than ADs. And there are no physical side effects. It's gently supportive and makes you care a lot less about things. But it doesn't of course make you feel happy. I'm going to keep on with it even though it doesn't offer anything near total protection from the overwhelming crushing pain of food withdrawal. But I have only stepped up the dose on Friday evening and maybe it would be worse than it has been without it. I've known days in this situation that were much much much worse than yesterday or today. This, in comparison, is low level pain, like an ache that's always there with regular but fairly brief periods of crying and piercing pain. Not full on curled up in an armchair with my head in my hands crying and crying and crying all day every day. So maybe it is working as much as it can. Maybe I should step up to 3 tablets a day? I am worried about the withdrawal from that of taking so much, but I would have to reduce one tablet at a time. Just as if I was coming off ADs. More important to stamp on this eating thing now than worry about that.

I am also taking rhodiola, a herbal supplement. Said to help make serotonin and dopamine (neurotransmitters) more available in the brain so making you feel better. I thought it would go well with the 5-HTP. It is also said to help with recovery from physical exertion - I've been taking it for the last couple of weeks now and maybe this is the reason why I have suffered no physical problems when I have had a sudden, unusual level of exercise ie comparatively long period of time walking. Problems like swelling of knees, aching of muscles in legs and bottom, aching knees or joints anywhere. I found this really surprising.

The above is what I knew when I started taking it. But I've just read how this herb also has an effect on opioid peptides. I mentioned in my first ever post how eating fatty/ sugary foods creates opioids in areas of the brain linked to this behaviour (see link to research in that post). So maybe this might offer some support there too. Rhodiola is an "adaptogen" which helps both mind and body deal with stress and return to normal functioning. It has also been implicated in helping prevent weight gain due to stress - but the experiments involve rats not humans! Still, I'm hoping it will help.

Jonathan Cainer says for Monday, "Better a little bearable pain today than a lot of regret tomorrow". Sadly the pain isn't little or bearable. But in taking these tablets I suppose I'm trying to make it less painful than it otherwise might be.

I still don't know if I can put myself through all this... But I don't think there's an alternative.

Hurrah! I went out and it was OK!

Thank you to everyone who left a comment on Thur post. It really helps to know there are other people out there rooting for me like that.

Today was an amazing and quite strange day. I inadvertently, and possibly only for one day, broke my reliance on carbs. This is amazing. I've tried in the past to do it and failed. But today I had no choice and actually enjoyed it! This is the weirdest thing ever. Yes. I enjoyed today. With only one bowl of Readybrek. Normally this would be unthinkable.

But really I can very little credit for this. It's down to the fact that I only had one bowl left in the packet and just enough milk for a meaningful splash of it on top. I did have sugar on it. But when that bowl was done, that was that. I couldn't have any more because there wasn't any more.

But I was OK. I had an L-glutamine tablet (1g) before breakfast because it really does stop hunger. Of course I don't take them when I'm in bingeing mode because I just want to eat and don't want to be stopped (which shows how much it is all in the head). But I thought I'd better take one today as a precaution against having no food and not being able to get any until the evening. And it worked. I also had another in the afternoon. Just to make sure.

And for lunch I ate what I had which was a little tinned salmon with a tin of green beans, some mushrooms and a few baked beans with some fat free dressing on top and a bit of pepper. And I really enjoyed that little meal for some reason. I was just so grateful I had something to eat.

The entire contents of my fridge were now: jar of mint sauce, jar of pickled green peppers, some red chillies - completely dried out, and a tube of tomato puree. So I decided to take advantage of this to defrost the fridge. It had needed doing for a long time. I just couldn't be bothered before, but today I decided "I will get that damn freezer section door to open again!" and after about 3 hours with a hairdryer and water getting all over the floor I did finally get it done.

Then I had another little meal identical to the earlier one except no green beans.

Then I read blogs for quite a while.

I had been hungry all the time I was doing the fridge, and having the freezer section operable again gave me thoughts of Carte d'Or ice cream. And I was genuinely hungry. Real hunger. Not just blood sugar all over the place type of hunger. And I started to get really really worried that when I got out in the evening I would buy all the wrong food. I started to get bingey thoughts.

I knew if I bought a load of rubbish, all the stuff I've been through over the last almost 2 weeks in weening myself off the sugary/fatty food would have been for nothing and I'd either carry on bingeing for a few more weeks or have to start the process of getting myself off it again. Either way bingeing today would have been a huge set back.

But reading all the blogs really helped. Knowing that there are so many other people out there trying so hard not to binge - that helped. And when I read Sean's Thurs post just before I went out that helped too - that what you want to achieve has to be more important than the bingeing.

And when I put my black trousers on to go out they were a little bit loose on the leg - I mean there was room to actually walk in them without feeling totally trussed up! Whereas in the last couple of weeks I have really worried that they were going to tear apart while I was outside. Of course, they're not looser because I lost some weight. It's just that the weather has turned and is much fresher and cooler the last couple of days than it has been. I retain a huge amount of water on my legs in warm weather - they really balloon up. But now it's cooler the water has come off. Wat-er relief! Even though I know it's only the hotweatherwater going it still made me feel that I can't turn my back on this. I want this feeling - of going down, of getting smaller - to carry on.

But when I was walking to the shop I was still thinking I might binge. I might buy all those foods again and end up back in it again.

When I got to the shop I made the right choices and it wasn't that difficult. The reduced section almost got me - but I managed to buy only healthy non-bingeing foods.

For my evening meal I had an all veg curry with a piece of haddock. And really enjoyed it.

So I'm ending today on a high. So happy that I enjoyed the healthy food. I wish I could eat like this every day - small meals consisting mainly of fish and veg. It would be a dream come true.

So for the moment not being able to go out has worked in my favour.

Chris suggested that perhaps I could exercise indoors but unfortunately I don't have room for an exercise machine. Not that my flat is too small per se but that I already have far too much other stuff in it. But I have started doing one or two toning exercises again. These involve press ups and an exercise I know as "the plank" which is the only way I know of tightening and toning that lower tummy area that sit ups don't seem to touch. You get into position as for a press up - arms can be straight or bent if you are able. Then lift one leg off the floor (or bed as that's where I do it) and move it out to the side as far as will go and then back 20 times keeping it at the same height all the time. Then 20 with the other leg. Sounds easy? Non my friend! It is very difficult. But a miracle worker. If you have a saggy lower tummy you will notice the difference in days just doing this once a day. If you can bear the pain, do it morning and night. Earlier this year I was also doing 80 stomach crunches - 50 straight and 30 twisting to opposite knee - twice a day (I built up slowly to that obviously) and also various leg exercises. I do all these lying on my bed. It's the comfiest way!

Frightened

Hi everyone. Well there would have been a post last night but when I had all but completed it I managed to press a button and lost the whole lot. Couldn't get it back. And I really wanted to type it all out again immediately while I still had it all in my mind, but I was just too tired at 1am to do it.


I did manage my walk on Mon night and it was wonderful! I didn't manage to get out until 5 to 10 but when I got outside the gate it was so delightful ... lovely and cool and dark and very few people around. I started walking through the streets not knowing how far I would be going. I was listening to George Michael - Patience. There's been a love affair there since I was 11 and heard Careless Whisper! I was almost happy enough to be dancing down the street, but sadly it was nearer waddling ...


I managed quite a decent walk up a hill and then back again. Totally chilled out with George crooning in my ears. Bliss! When I got back I had fish, veg and salad. I was really pleased with myself! Bed at 4am.


Tue I didn't manage to get out but had a bit of exercise doing my laundry going up and down stairs as the washer is in the basement and my flat is in the attic. I had a proper evening meal again. Bed at 3am.

Wed was more difficult. I was too scared to go out during the day but badly need to as I had nothing in for a healthy eve meal. Later on as I was just psyching myself up for the dreaded trip outdoors I heard noise downstairs - they were having a bit of a party. I just couldn't face walking past, being seen by so many people (potentially).


I was so upset. I realised I was quite agitated from not having had any exercise.


All the time I was bingeing I was very hot and very agitated. I was putting so much energy into myself and there was nowhere for it to go - except in heat and agitation of the mind. I was unable to walk any of it off due to agoraphobia, embarrassment over my size and just a complete disinclination to do anything or go anywhere.


I often slept very little - only 3 hours a night - and never wanted to get into bed. My mind never wanted to shut off. The toddler inside never wanted to go to bed - why is it that kids hate having to go to bed? I don't know. But when the toddler has the upper hand making myself get into bed is a real struggle.


My target bedtime for wed had been 2am but I only made it into bed at 3am. At least it's a lot better than 6 or 7am. I am going to try for 2am tonight. And the last couple of nights I have wanted to get into bed.


My title for yesterday was "Normalizing?" My eating is certainly a lot better. I haven't binged now for over a week. It has been in my mind at times. Many times.


Last week I was concentrating on readjusting my body to come off high fat/ high sugar foods. And to stop bingeing. And I was successful in both those aims. I ate a lot of carbs (rice cakes, corn cakes, rivita, Readybrek) sugar free jam, a little honey, ham and turkey, plenty of fruit and sugar free yoghurt. But I didn't restrict the amount I ate and it doesn't take a genius to work out that 4 meals a day each coming in at over 1000 calories (minimum) is still going to put on weight. But it was about re-educating my taste buds and stomach without feeling deprived of calories.


So this week I am concentrating on cutting down on the amount of carbs and having my eve meal of fish, veg and salad. I am on 6 bowls of Readybrek or ground rice porridge a day + some fruit + eve meal. Still too much. I hope soon to be down to three bowls a day.


Despite still eating quite large amounts the puffiness in my face has gone down a little bit which does make me feel a little more confident in facing the world. And because I am no longer eating wheat the swelling of my bowel has gone down some too. I can't tolerate wheat and it always makes my whole bowel swell up. But that doesn't stop me eating it when I binge of course.

And my skin has started to look dramatically better as well - despite only having taken one antihistamine a day the last few days. This tells me my body needs veg and salad and it needs regular exercise. Although I still have psoriasis on my hands and feet whatever I do. It's PPP psoriasis which is incredibly treatment resistant.

So all this looks like good progress .... But can I keep going?


Well today hasn't been so good so far. I am too frightened to go out yet again. I am thinking I'll have to self harm to be able to get myself out the door - and I won't even attempt it for a couple of hours yet. I get to the stage where I'm so angry at myself, so pissed off and frustrated that I just have to let all that anger out. And no, thumping a pillow doesn't do anything for me!

This morning I had 4 bowls of Readybrek made only with water as I am virtually out of milk. And then because I was frightened about not being able to get out and get anymore food - I have pretty well nothing in to eat at all - I started thinking of what I did have - a tin of salmon, a tin of baked beans and a packet of new potatoes in herb butter. And I was so frightened over the prospect of not getting out today that I ate all all the potatoes (I don't even like potatoes) and 1/2 the baked beans and 1/2 the salmon. It doesn't sound like that much looking at it now. But I was in a state and upset that I'd eaten stuff I didn't need and didn't want to eat and I'd already had too much Readybrek ... so I threw it back up ... worrying all the time that not enough was coming back up... And then of course that just made me feel like crying...

So now I have been blogging rather than crying ...

I still have to face the outdoors but it is very overcast now so I feel confident that I will make it out there - whether self harming or no. But now I am worried that I will buy binge foods and undo all the good work over the last week or so.

The bingeing has been hovering in my mind all the time of course. I have been able to resist. But right now I don't know ...

Reading this back just now it probably seems strange that someone with agoraphobia can enjoy a walk, but my problem is mainly the terror of going outside. Once I get out there sometimes I don't feel too bad. But the fear of crossing the threshold is incredible, like a stone wall in front of me stopping me getting out. And this fear of going over the threshold is not linked to my weight at all. It's like that whatever size I am. The stress I experience when I get out there though, that is more linked to how I look. If I am bigger then I am worried about people looking at me, at seeing people I know, upset that I look such a mess etc.

It's 6pm now and time to face the dreaded outdoors. Wish me luck ...

Ok. So I have now discovered what so many of you know already - blogging and reading blogs is addictive! I'm totally addicted. I'm even getting that "rush" that all addicts get when they are about to *indulge*.

I have read so many good things today. So many brave people out there who are willing to tell the truth about the difficult things going on in their lives. Things which I have thought about, or issues which have real meaning for me, but which I would have shied away from writing about myself. It's amazing the sense of relief that comes from realising "I'm not the only one", and from thinking "me too"... That there are so many people out there battling similar problems and not giving up. I just feel so grateful for all this.

Reading JackSh*t (see blog list) today made me think about how I got into my current bingeing hole. Through April, May and June of this year I worked so hard getting myself back onto the straight and narrow. And God it was hard. I spent most of April getting my food intake down - first to a reasonable level (I won't say normal because I don't even know what that is anymore), then by May my intake was at a level where I could actually lose some weight, and I kept going religously from May through to early July not stepping out of line on the eating front one single time. I thought I had it cracked! Ha ha.

And for three solid months I also exercised at least three times a week, often more than that, walking for at least an hour and a half each time. And this was no mean feat because I was in pain all the time. My psoriasis at that time was only on my hands and feet, but these are the most painful places to have it. One of my feet was so bad I was usually limping for the whole walk. I started to call myself "ol' hop along". Many times I was crying and telling myself to "just push through the pain". It frustrated me that I was only able to walk so slowly. The distance that would normally take 90 mins would sometimes take 2hrs in extreme pain. But I was determined!

And then one day in July a guy said to me "You've lost weight haven't you". And it all unravelled from there. As soon as he said it I knew there was a problem. But for the life in me, I don't know why. Three days later I started bingeing again.

It was on a Sunday afternoon in Cafe Nero. I ordered a large Mocha and a piece of chocolate chunk fudge cake - definitely the best chocolate cake ever! And after that I went to KFC and had a full meal with a sundae for afters. And from there it was open season. I daren't even write about all the stuff I've eaten since then because I'm desperate not to set myself off again. But let's just say *vast amounts of food*. I think that covers it. And I only vomited after eating three times in the last six weeks of hell. And each of those times was after I'd actually eaten healthy food. How screwy is that?

So now I'm back to where I was weightwise at the beginning of April.

Back then I had read an article about a family of four who weighed about 83 stone (that's 1162 lbs for US readers) between them. Sadly they lived in quite a rough place where people called them names in the street - including referring to them as "the Teletubbies". When I looked in the mirror and realised there was a teletubbie looking back at me, that was when I knew I had to change. Now the teletubbie is back again and I've got to go through the whole battle yet again.

WHY? WHY? WHY?

The 5am Post

Well here I am posting in the small hours of the morning, though as this blog is set to some US time zone it will probably look like I wrote it at a much more reasonable time. Why am I writing this in the middle of the night? Because I've been on antihistamines from the moment I got up to try and calm my skin down. They do cut the itching and my skin does look a little better, but they also put me half to sleep. It's pretty well impossible to do anything very much when I'm taking them - like trying to do something blind drunk, but with no enjoyment thrown in.

Between 2 and 4 hours after I take the first dose I am barely awake and then when that wears off and I start to feel alert - and start itching again - it means it's time to take the second dose.

So what with that and the fact that I went to bed at about 6am yesterday (also because of the antihistamines) I've only just got to the point in the day of being compos mentis.

Well at least I don't have to drink any alcohol to put myself into oblivion ...

So how have I done the last couple of days? Well I woke up on Friday crying and totally wiped out from having been out for several hours on Thursday. I felt so delicate, both psychologically and physically. I just couldn't face going out again so I didn't go to healing at the library. I hardly ever miss it - even in the last 6 weeks when things have been so bad, I only missed it one other time. And that was because it was too hot to go out in my coat.

Normally when I don't go to healing I feel really really bad, but on Friday I was too drowsy to get upset about it. I've hardly missed a Friday healing in the last 8 1/2 years. It's my fixed point of the week, and I don't feel complete if I don't go. It's not just the healing itself - 15 to 20 mins of total relaxation, total safety, grounding, and healing energy going all the way through you. It's the opportunity to socialise, to say hello to everyone, a few words here and there with people I've been chatting to for so many years ...

For someone as isolated as me, this is as important as the healing itself. In the last 6 weeks I have hardly chatted to anyone else apart from those people I see at healing.

Except The Bear of course!

It's at times like this when I feel so bad about myself that he is the only person I trust. Because he's seen me at my very worst and not rejected me. This makes it very special. He accepts me whatever I look like and whatever I feel like inside.

But sadly I don't get to chat to him that often, or spend much time with him.

As far as my eating goes, I'm sticking to low fat foods but not restricting my intake. I have eaten one small galaxy bar but downed two Orlistat with it. The next stage will be cutting down on the amount of food I'm eating and then trying to get into a regular pattern of good eating again - which includes having a proper evening meal of fish, salad and vegetables.

This, for me, is the most difficult bit when I've been on a food bender. Salad and vegetables are very challenging when you've only been eating rubbish, or even when you've only been eating mainly lowfat carbs, fruit and yoghurt as I am now. It's a big jump to make. When I'm eating that proper evening meal again it means I'm really "doing it"; really back on my diet. And that's real pressure, because it means that everything I eat then "counts". I will have fully stepped back into reality at that point.

Bingeing is like stepping out of reality for a while; like nothing you eat will actually put on any weight. That's what enables me to eat huge, ridiculous amounts of food. I am not connected to the reality of my situation or my life anymore. Only to the enjoyment of eating in that moment. And it is only momentary enjoyment. Sometimes even between items of food - say between one chocolate bar and another - I wish I could stop. I keep saying no more to myself even as I am reaching for the next thing to eat.

Getting back into exercising is even more difficult ...

So how do I get there? Sadly not because I love myself too much to hurt myself anymore. It's nothing to do with self love. I only ever manage to get back into it because I've become totally suicidal over not being able to go out, not having a life and looking so dreadful. Suicidal over having destroyed my appearance yet again ...

One motivator that has got me back on track the last few times is a man I fell in love with in 2005 (after I had split up with The Bear). I haven't seen this man in over 4 years now. I don't expect I ever shall see him again - and I really wouldn't want to looking like this!

We met on a course. There was this incredible chemistry between us, but we never spoke a word about it. We were never alone without other people there. He was married, so it was impossible. And he was far too honourable ever to do anything he shouldn't. So our feelings were silent and when the course ended we carried on our separate ways.

And I have never even fancied anyone since then, let alone fallen in love.

So the motivator is fantasising about seeing this man, reigniting the chemistry again. Fantasising about him being free to pursue a relationship.

Yet it's not really about this particular man - because I fully accept that that could never happen. It's about what he stands for; the idea of him. Because he was so perfect, and I was so amazed that someone so perfect could ever fall for someone like me; someone so imperfect.

I know some people will think it's wrong to be motivated by a man, that we should do it for our selves, because we love ourselves etc. But this is my reality, however politically incorrect it is ...

Oh God I'm itching really badly again. I'm going to have to go to bed now.

I may be going to see The Bear tomorrow so at least that is something to look forward to. But only if the weather is cold enough ...

Post Orlistat

Well I managed to break the fatty food habit for this week. I used the Orlistat method over the weekend and I've been suitably turned off fatty food. Of course it helped that the morning after the first 2 doses I woke up to an unfortunate accident with horrid orange gloop all over a sheet and the duvet I sleep on (mattress is so lumpy I sleep on top of 2 duvets). I was very glad it didn't go onto the mattress itself - at least I was able to wash away the damage - but it was a scary and disgusting way to start the day.

Luckily I only had to take it for 3 days to have the desired effect in my head. But that was traumatic enough. How people take it for months on end I have no idea. Presumably someone will (or maybe has?) invented a suitably shaped anal sanitary towel to deal with this problem. Sorry for the disgustingness of that idea!! Just being practical .... and there is a market out there for such a product ...

In my last post I talked about being unable to take the Orlistat. So what changed? Well, I reached the point where I was so distressed about the situation, about not being able to leave the house because I am so embarrassed about how much weight I have put on, about my fatness being on view to the whole world because it has been too hot here to go out without my mac on; the idea of my shame being exposed to the whole world just got too overwhelming.

And then there's my psoriasis. Every time I binge the areas of psoriasis literally burn afterwards. 6 weeks ago before I started this bingeing episode it was only on my hands and feet. Now it is all over my body and very very itchy. This is due entirely to eating rubbish. It will probably take quite a long time to calm down. And that's only if I can keep myself on the straight and narrow.

Yesterday I had an appointment and so had to go out. As I've barely been out in the last few weeks this was quite a big deal. It took me at least an hour to put together something to wear - some turned up Topshop cargo pants which I had bought the last time I was big and thought I'd never wear again (I had thought what a waste of money they were ... I wish) and a loose Monsoon silk shirt over ribbed vest top. I did the lower buttons of the shirt up to cover my large stomach but as it was thin silk I don't know how effective the disguise was!

I amazed myself by doing quite OK while I was out. I even went and did some shopping afterwards at a centre near the hospital which I usually never visit - which might sound really brave given my agoraphobia, but that was easier than using shops where I am known because at least strangers won't be looking at me and thinking how much weight I've suddenly put on.

Because I felt OK at the time I was able to do Good Shopping - rice cakes, sugar free jam, dried fruit, raspberries and strawberries, ham and turkey, fat free cottage cheese, a little salad, fat free yoghurt. And because I was calm I wasn't tempted by anything I shouldn't be buying. As I've said before, it's all in the shopping.

Bingeing hell; time to return to normal life

Just seen some research which explains why bingeing is so addictive - it creates opioids in areas of the brain linked to that behaviour (see http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159011.php . I have noticed that I literally get a hit from eating fatty sugary food. And that I can cut out this hit by using orlistat. It takes two to three days for this to happen but then I don't crave it anymore.

I take two or three capsules per binge or sometimes more (this is an overdose but it is only for 2 to 3 days). I break the capsules open and tap the powder out onto a spoon to take because the colouring in the capsules (bright blue) makes me feel quite ill. Also this enables the stuff to get to work straight away which means the maximum amount of fat is absorbed, which is important for this method to work.

So, knowing this, why don't I just take the orlistat? I almost did this evening after consuming a magnum double caramel, a galaxy bar, a box of Milk Tray, a box of cherry and chocolate biscuits and a packet of Party Rings. But I just couldn't do it.

Why?

I have been massively overeating, bingeing and literally eating all day long for the past 5 weeks. It's feeling really awful now. So many times I have desperate to stop. I have begged myself to stop, but just been unable.

It's like being led through life like a beast with a ring through it's nose; dragged along by my blood sugar levels, and the need for a fat hit in my brain.

But now I feel like a complete mess. I've put on loads of weight and I'm covered in horrible itchy psoriasis. So I am a wobbly blotchy itchy mess.

Everything has been subserviant to the out of control toddler (the uncontrollable Id). I've only been cleaning my teeth twice a week. I've been eating in the night, going to bed in the middle of the night, only washed my hair three times in the last five weeks. The toddler complains everytime I even have to get up out of the chair or go to the loo. Doing anything at all becomes very difficult. Apart from eating of course.

JC (Jonathan Cainer) is always right of course - my horoscope says that it's no good eating 2 meals now just because you were hungry earlier and had nothing to eat. He suggests I now move on from the recent trauma. He is so right! I need to move on from here.

I am at the stage now where it's all in the shopping. If I don't buy the food I can't eat it. Simple as that. It's just a case of being strong while I go round the supermarket and not popping out to the convenience store late a night to stock up on rubbish.

I say 'popping out' as though it's the easiest thing in the world but as a sufferer from agoraphobia it is only a very strong desire for food that would drive me out in the first place! But if I have enough good or 'safe' food in then I won't step over the threshold in any hurry.

It's definitely time to move on from here and return to normal life, rather than just sitting around eating.