Turn around

The good news first: I've had a Good Food Day today. I got up late and instead of reaching for a carby breakfast of porridge or cereal (2 or 3 bowls) I found I just couldn't face it (more on that later). So I had a diet yoghurt followed by a load of veg I cooked the night before with some fish in parsley sauce (135 cal). And I loved it. I followed it with a caramel Wispa bar. Then I had to go out to see my CPN. We had and a good meeting and when I told her about the continuing trouble with agoraphobia she suggested that once a week someone could meet me at the supermarket and go round with me. Strange that I've never been offered help with this before but then it's rarely been as extreme as it is now. Anyway, that will make sure I get out to the supermarket once a week.

After I'd seen her I was able to do some Good Shopping and I was literally dripping with sweat by the time I got home with heavy bags. It is still VERY warm here (on the SW Peninsular). For tea (as we from the north call it) I had fish pie and plenty of veg and a little salad + a diet yoghurt + low cal choc drink (40cals).

So I have managed a day without any starchy carbs and I didn't even feel like any.

But the reason today has been so good is because last night was so bad - although generally after a bad night the carb monster is still raging. I had a major choc/ cake/ biscuit binge. I hadn't had a binge since last Monday.

The reason for last night's binge? Tuesday is always a bad day because I do my laundry and I get stressed over it and I couldn't face the rest of the evening without a "treat" but instead of buying just one or two things I bought a carrier bag full. So even though I'd cooked a load of veg before I went to the shop I wasn't able to eat it because I can't eat good food when I've just eaten a load of rubbish.

I didn't even enjoy it beyond the first two Cadbury Twirls. I was forcing it down but I didn't want it, need it or enjoy it. I did feel guilty afterwards; that I'd made myself eat food I didn't want. I also felt frightened. Frightened of the effect of all that rubbish. I thought about throwing up afterwards but couldn't quite persuade myself to do it.

Great to feel guilty; that what I did was wrong. And strange to be suddenly frightened. It shows I've come to my senses a bit over my crazy eating. I hadn't binged since the previous Monday, so I went over a week without bingeing. And I wasn't massively overeating dry carbs either. In fact my eating the last week has been more normal than it's been in a long time. Why?

A weird thing happened on the Sunday - I binged and it caused me to cry. I felt miserable that I was putting too much food in my body. Really sad. And then when I got up early on Monday morning after very little sleep I ate the rest of the bingeing food I had in. I got back into bed with the last chocolate bar and when I next looked down at it, it was practically gone and I didn't remember eating it. The down side of eating when you're not fully woken up yet. That shocked me and made me feel really terrible. Like it hadn't been worth it. And I was miserable over my silly binge for the rest of the day. And crying over it.

But I recognised that although I felt bad this was actually a good thing. Whereas before I had cried when trying not to binge, now I was crying because I was bingeing. So my bingeing wasn't reinforced anymore by that feeling of relief and the enjoyment of the food; so I haven't wanted to do it anymore. In fact I had a miserable, down feeling whenever I thought of it last week. Last week when I went to the convenience shop and looked at the bingeing foods I felt turned off, rather than pressing the "go" button in my brain, the lets-just-buy-a-load-of-chocolate-cake-biscuits-crisps etc button that results in a basket full of rubbish.

So why did I reach this point? I think it's because it has just gone too far. It's been going on too long. I'd been bingeing badly almost every day for over 2 1/2 months (with just one week when I didn't binge and ate mainly Readybrek).

Not that I haven't done worse and gone on for longer in the past. But I think the difference is I've never done so little for such a long period of time. I've been feeling ill with pains in the chest, aching, agitation, skin problems. A lot of this is due to sitting indoors hardly moving all day long.

The worst time I ever had in my life was 2002 when put on 6 stone (84lbs) in a few months. But I didn't feel as bad physically as I do now. Why? Well I was getting out a lot more. Just walking into town (15 mins), around town and back again. Walking round with The Bear. And maybe I was just younger then - 30 instead of 37. Makes a difference.

And this time I have really given up on everything. No healing, hardly ever going into town at all, no going to the library. I've only seen The Bear about twice and my CPN twice (apart from today) during this mad bingeing phase.

All this time I have chosen food over people. All "normal life" has been suspended. I have been too ashamed to go out and be seen by other people and spend time with other people. But working through all that stuff about shame has really helped me. A couple of days ago I went into town on my own and sat in a cafe and read a book. I was self conscious and worried who might see me, but I was also relieved and happy that I did it. Not having binged for a week helped too of course. Really annoying then that as soon as I got stressed I binged again.

I think the solution to the Tuesday problem is to go to bed for 2 or 3 hours. Sean (DD of a WL) said that when he felt like bingeing he used to go to bed and when he woke up the need to binge was gone. And Nora (Green Stone Woman) often uses the method of going to sleep when she feels bad and when she wakes up her brain is reset. So this is what I'm going to do next Tuesday. Have to wait and see if it works.

BTW My healer really loved the flowers - she texted me to say she was "over the moon" with them. I hope I'll be going to see her again in the next 2 to 3 weeks. I'm really looking forward to it.

PS I accidentally deleted an email entitled something like "Extremely Confidential". So if you sent such an email, please send again (unless it was junk)!

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.

The binge that saved my ancestor

Introduction or disclaimer: I was in two minds about whether to put up this piece or not. It seems to be a complete contradiction to the last post, diametrically opposing the idea that there is no such thing as "natural fatness". That post was about being told I was fat when I was not and therefore spending my entire life feeling I was fat, even when I was, in reality, thin. In writing this post I was trying to deal with the very great shame I am carrying over my eating issues and the consequent damage to my appearance. It's unfortunate I got into using the word natural. What I was really trying to say was that EDs are an adaptive response; the interaction of natural biological and psychological responses to the behaviour of other people and the food available in our environment.

I thought about perhaps changing it all, completely rewriting it with the emphasis on adaptive responses. But what I am saying here is that eating behaviours are natural, normal and human, and only what is to be expected given the environment a person has grown up in and evolutionally potentiated biological preferences.

What I am not saying is that that means a large percentage of us should just accept being fat. This is not a fat acceptance piece. I want to be thin. I've wanted to be thin all my life. Maybe what I am saying is that the reasons a lot of us struggle with our weight are just the expected responses given our lives and circumstances, and therefore there is no need for shame. And also, that if we do understand the complex processes and interactions involved then we have more of a chance of changing them.

Am I deluded or confused? I'll leave you to decide.

***
The Binge That Saved My Ancestor

Shame. There's so much shame in our lives. If you are a binge eater or overeater then you know what I'm talking about. I read Pamela's post (see Uncovering Pamela, 3rd Sep) about her shame over a 30lb weight gain. My reaction and that of those who commented was that she shouldn't feel shame, that these things happen and she should not feel bad about herself for it. We can see how useless shame is, how negative it is, how it makes a person who is feeling bad already feel even worse about the situation. We want to take all that shame away from them and make them feel better.



Of course we can think all this when someone else feels shame about their weight; it's a whole different ball game when it's our own shame. When we feel the shame of having been "out of control", of having binged or eaten too much, of having visible weight gain - and especially if it comes after having lost a load of weight, then it's our dirty secret and we can never imagine being able to jettison that embarrassment over our behaviour and appearance.



It feels like our shame is a "natural" reaction to having done something terribly wrong. That being "out of control" around food means that we are "bad" in some way. That wanting to eat more than we "need" means we are behaving badly. That we are at fault.



But what if the bingeing and the overeating are the natural things, the natural responses to a particular set of circumstances in your life? No-one deliberately sets out to wilfully overeat or binge. It is a natural part of human existence.



Many women wish that they could eat "intuitively" and maintain a (UK) size 8 or 10 figure; they wish that it came "naturally" to them and that there is something inherently "wrong" with them that they can't do this. That struggling to maintain themselves at that size is a failure of sorts in itself. That this battle is unnatural.



But in fact the idea that intuitive eating means only eating small amounts of food and thus being thin is utterly unnatural. Do you think a cave man would turn down any food at all? Do you think a cave man would chose the lower fat option (assuming he had any options at all)? Do you think they would turn down a salty option? The sweet option? Humans are designed to seek out the fatty, salty, sweet options. Humans are designed to eat when there is food available. And if it's available in quantity they eat it in quantity. Because millions of years ago, thousands of years ago, even 100 years ago, that was the only way to stay alive. As Steven Pinker says, we are only evolved as far as the stone age.

And eating when you're feeling stressed, exhausted, depressed? Again entirely natural and entirely adaptive to the survival of the human race. When our ancestors were stressed it was generally because their very existence was in peril. Did they ever feel down? Well you know how bad it feels when you don't have very much to eat ... that feeling was designed to make sure that you do eat when food is available. Ditto the comforting feeling when you have eaten a good meal. And when you feel exhausted at work but just have to keep going? Eating snacks is the natural way to get your blood sugar back up.



So far from being natural, being thin in a society where food is overwhelmingly abundant, available in any quantity at any time of the day or night, in the sugariest, saltiest, fattiest combinations possible, is highly unnatural. To maintain a thin figure is to be battling your natural biology and psychology every step of the way.



And all this without even considering each individual's personal history of complex interactions with people and food. Each person will have formed their own adaption to the circumstances they have been presented with. Positive and negative connotations of different foods, acceptance or not of their own body and the different body shapes of other people, their family relationships, and the eating behaviours of their family and of society in general. A huge amount of information transmitted, neural pathways created and reinforced, interactions between biological imperatives and psychological processes; our resultant eating behaviour is not our fault. But that doesn't mean we can't change it. Change is possible. But I think understanding is necessary first.



You are a child of nature.

There is no need for shame.



****

In 1665 in a village in Derbyshire (UK Midlands) called Eyam, the Bubonic plague arrived in a flea infested sample of cloth sent from London. Quickly people became ill with the terrifying symptoms of black spots on the skin which actually rotted while they were still alive, vomiting and coughing blood, diarrhea, swelling, fever, pain. Whole families started to die. Instead of fleeing to safety, the villagers voluntarily agreed to quarantine themselves so as to stop the spread of this virulent disease. Food and other supplies were left for them at the edge of the village. By the time the plague burnt itself out less than a quarter of the villagers were still alive. Most of the survivors are thought to have been immune to the illness due to a particular gene mutation which is present throughout European populations. It was very rare to actually contract the disease and survive it.



But my ancestor did. She was wild with fever and in her delirium she consumed an entire piggin of bacon fat (a piggin is a large jug or pail as for collecting water). She survived. This mega pure fat binge probably gave her body the energy it needed to fight off the deadly plague. This "binge" was her body and mind's natural response. Yes, she was under the severe stress of illness and impending death, she was exhausted and despairing over the deaths of many people and the collapse of her entire world. Yes, she was "out of control".

Do you think she felt shame?