Conscious Contact with Reality

Hi Everyone,

Today I'm focusing on "reality," which is something ED hates. Reality tells me that it's okay to be a "normal" weight, and reminds me that while the isolation of living in the ED mindset can feel comforting and powerful, it is all an illusion... the same way our minds play tricks on us to tell us we're fat.

Reality, for me, is about honesty. I know I post a lot about honesty, but isn't that what it's all about? When I tell myself, "It's okay, you don't need to eat," when I'm physically hungry, or when I tell myself, "Just finish the rest, you can start again tomorrow," when I'm holding my stomach because I'm clearly full, I'm not living an honest recovery.

Today, I'm trying to live in reality and listen to what the quiet ED voices in my head are saying, because when I listen to the subtle voices--the voices that seem like no big deal, but could actually be the most seductive, insidious, and manipulative voices--I eventually start listening to the overt ED messages that send me straight to the grocery store or to the toilet.

For today, having conscious contact with reality means to eat what's on my food plan, don't listen to ED voices that will only sabotage my recovery and make me feel guilty, and to have the COURAGE to either pick up or put down the fork when I cross over to emotional eating.

Recovery teaches me everyday that it is really just one day at a time.

Hunger is... okay.

It's funny... prior to recovery, I spent so many years vacillating from bingeing and purging to starving myself, intentionally trying to feel physically empty. Yet, in recovery, I've become afraid to feel that which I used to crave... hunger. It's not the type of thing where I'm afraid to feel the grumbling in my stomach before a meal; actually, now that I'm writing, I'm not even sure that it's fear...

At the treatment centers I so humbly crawled to in the summer of 2001, we ate in an extremely regimented way (of course), being served up breakfast, lunch, dinner... and meta. Meta, or metabolic, went against the grain of every eating disordered bone in my body. Eat a snack before bed to regulate blood sugar? Moreover, it went against the dogmas of the most popular diets, which told me not to eat past eight in the evening, or no carbs past the afternoon. Dogmas that even Oprah buys into.

I'd always prided myself on going to bed on an empty stomach, hoping that I'd wake up (and feel) one more pound lighter. Just one more, and I'll feel okay about myself.

Ever since my discharge from the rehabs that saved my life, I've eaten meta every night. It's a great plan. That said, the compulsive eater in me sends warning signals to my brain if I don't eat meta, or if I don't eat every 4-5 hours the way I've been conditioned to eat.

So, yesterday, after some probing questions from my therapist, I found myself at another level of honesty in my recovery. What I know is that I don't have to always eat something just because my brain tells me I should. Now, DO NOT get this confused with some type of anorexic cognitive distortion--this is hardly that. This is me being honest with myself about the fact that I still emotionally eat, in small doses.

I've been complaining (for years) that I just want to eat cleanly. I'll eat cleanly for the entire day, and then at the end of the night, I'll eat something--that "thing" that I'm hoping will make me feel "whatever," but in actuality makes me feel guilty and increases my self-loathing--I don't really need, just to sabotage me, mentally.

Well, I'm happy to report that last night, I, finally, went to bed without sabotaging myself! It was a little uncomfortable to go to bed without the maladaptive comfort of knowing I screwed up my perfectly clean abstinence yet again. But today, I feel so happy that I honored self-honesty.

This has triggered many thoughts and questions... I'd like to be able to not have to rely on "perfect" abstinence in order to feel good about my recovery. That's very black and white, eating disordered thinking. I wonder if anyone reading this has come to a mental middle ground with their recovery? More next post...

The Forgettable Face of Honesty

The last week has been somewhat of a controlled food frenzy. I didn't go binge or anything, but I had several consecutive days of eating whatever. This is where my abstinence can get tricky, because I can, basically, eat whatever I want... in small doses.

After a while of eating freely, though, I accumulate both a mental and physical buildup, which leaves me feeling guilty and fat. This is never a good pattern for me to fall into. It has, in the past, been a setup for relapse. So, today, I knew I'd have to get honest with myself, and employ more structure to my food plan.

If I've learned anything throughout my recovery journey, it's that I can use as many tools as I want to--going to meetings, using a food plan, picking up the telephone, sponsorship, using a treatment team, etc.--BUT, none of them really matter if I'm not honest with myself.

I may coast on the coattails of self-will for a while, but, eventually, it will catch up to me.

While I don't attend "The Program" at present, the one phrase from the literature that never leaves my mind is the part in the Big Book stating, "There are those who are constitutionally incapable of getting honest with themselves."

That phrase snaps me back into reality, to remind me to get honest about my own level of self-honesty... if that makes any sense.

I now have a daily reminder alarm on my phone to remind me to wake-up and get honest. It's amazing how easy it is to forget about honesty! In times of stress, no, actually, ANYTIME, I can be lured by this or that food, forgetting that IF IM HONEST WITH MYSELF, then I don't really want what I'm reaching for.

What I'm craving in the moment is much deeper than food.

I've said it before, and I'm saying it again (for myself)...Self Honesty IS the BEST POLICY!!!!