The last 5 years has been a horrific downward spiral, there is so much to explain but I hardly understand it all myself. Looking back, regret, shame, living for the past I had lived and it was no longer real, the anger ate up within that I was stupid enough to be where I am today. I just wanted to go back, the disbelief, my fighting against the guilt of ‘grieving’ grieving for myself, the life I no longer had, the pride I no longer wore with my smile, my heart ached for my children and friends, the life I had built. Every little and huge mistake seemed to dig myself deeper and deeper into old coping habits. Binge eating, eating in secret, drinking and eating rubbish food in excess. Why? Absolutely no idea why I had no self control, clarity, I could not it was a sort of automatic ‘action/reaction’ to whatever I was feeling. The feeling that every time I ate something that I knew was a red flag to me, I deep down must have been feeling that I had blown it, then my spiral wound faster downwards, because my deepest inner me just knew that I had failed.
Just before Christmas I had the chink of light illuminating dark space that is my mind, from a conversation I had with a mentor who my Dr had put me in touch with. The one thing he said to me which has profoundly helped move every so slightly to the realisation I want to accept responsibility for myself, my actions, I did not want to blame anything, or past memory, old ingrained habit, some bad luck of life’s wheel of fortune. I told the mentor how I felt that I had thrown my life away, yet again feeling I was at the end, all my chances used up. He asked me ‘what makes you think this is the end?” “The end is when we take our last breath”. The weight in those words has rattled around my head for a few weeks now. Eating and drinking over Christmas, I had planned to have what I want, all the things I would not eat after new year as I would be eating healthy again. Whilst I have started that change today, eating low carb and clean foods, the thought that lives with me now, this moment, is that this is the same cycle I have been on since childhood, eat/binge, restrict, from a young age until now, how do I stop relapses happening over and over again? Is it the acceptance that I have an addiction to binge eating. It is a shameful black coat to where, there have been times where I had been able to control the binges and accept I had to steer away from processed foods which propelled the need to binge further, with the promise tomorrow I would forgive myself and start over.
It is going well, my mind is hopeful, the past I am trying to come to terms with so I can focus on today, feed the hope of a better tomorrow.
During the last few months I have found a love for water colour painting, it has enabled me to find moments of peace, while doing it my mind is only focused on the colour, the water, the paper, it has given respite from the darkness.