FOOD AND PAIN

The quote in the photo is so true for me! But I did something courageous this time. I shared that I had fallen back into my eating disorder. It has been two weeks since I’ve eaten and I didn’t know exactly why at first.

I have begun to work on all my trauma. I have been working with my therapist for some weeks now so I kind of guessed that could have been what sparked it but I still didn’t understand.

Two weeks ago I was pretty upset. I had a lot of strong emotions coming out from the trauma and I didn’t eat that day. The next day was kind of the same. Suddenly I lost control of it. I started to believe that I could not eat or I would be betraying myself.

I opened up to my therapist about it instead of hiding it via email and today we talked about it. After a fair amount of discussion it finally came out. I was doing it to avoid feeling all the emotions associated with my trauma. I just substituted my eating disorder for the drugs or alcohol that I used to use before getting sober six years ago. It made so much sense!

I’m going to be honest that I feel embarrassed about allowing myself to get to that place but I subconsciously must have thought that I wasn’t strong enough to handle the pain. I do feel better having walked through that with my supportive therapist!

I told her I was committed to taking some bites of food today and working towards eating a little bit each day. My high school daughter and I are home today just relaxing so I ordered us lunch. Chicken soup for me!

I have to say that this is extremely difficult for me! With each bite I have to take a break and breathe. Each bite is extremely painful! There are two kinds of pain occurring. First is the physical pain from not having eaten for two weeks so my system is trying to figure out what is going on. More importantly though is the emotional discomfort that I feel from eating. With each bite I feel like I’m losing control and letting the pain from my trauma in. With each bite I have to tell myself that I’m strong and I can do this!

If I allow myself to eat then I have nothing to distract me from my trauma, nothing to hide behind. If I’m honest there is some crying involved in eating this soup today! It’s not a bad thing but it is painful. My heart aches. I’m extremely proud of myself right now for doing this! I’m even more proud of myself for being honest with her in the first place and working on this only two weeks in, instead of months in.

It may take me all day to eat this soup but I will because healing is so important to me! I deserve it no matter what anyone thinks and by anyone I guess I mean the abusers whom are still in my life. One bite at a time! Just how I got sober one day at a time!