Wrecked

The week has been full of emotional turmoil. The fantasy about walking out on my family was so intense - leading up to it and afterward - that I fell hard into old bad food habits - before and afterward - just to keep functioning.

Monday morning I spent nearly $25 on candy and junk food for the office. Twinkies, Ho-Ho's, peanut butter cups, Rolo's, and Milky Way's. Ugh. Just the act of seeing it in print makes my stomach flip-flop and my skin crawl. By Wednesday morning I'd eaten half of the Twinkies AND Ho-Ho's so I relinquished the rest to a colleague and asked that he require me to have a mini counseling session in order to get something from the box 'o junk food. Since this conversation was in front of several colleagues, I also said "save me from myself". They were given the green light to tease about how the box of junk food was organized by type of junk.

Another colleague walked up on the tail end of the conversation and looked at me as if she was sure I'd already gone mad. Which of course, I explained that I had, and then proceeded to confess that the candy was a futile attempt to stave off bad thoughts - sugar being my drug of choice - about the fantasy in which I walked away from my family with no regard for anything but my own mental health (gasp!). The confession happened to coincide with my office having lost power so I couldn't work anyway - although I kept 4 other people from working for several minutes - and as I explained, if I didn't say it out loud, I was quite certain that it would come to be that the family I worked so hard to have simply disintegrated because of my lack of clarity lately.

By Friday I had polished off an entire bag each of Rolo's and Milky Way. As one colleague, who wasn't privy to the confession on Wednesday morning, so aptly put it when she saw how I'd finished it all off: "you have a serious problem". I explained it was serious mental issues.

I am pretty clear that I've completely screwed my body. The headaches started before the candy but the candy certainly hasn't been making things better. And to think, a year ago I was eating Clean every day of the week. I was probably at the pinnacle of my healthful self then. Now I'm just a walking chemical.

Sugar has always been my go-to food in times of stress - since I was about 8 or so and could make my own bowls of cereal I piled it on. To the point that there were spoonfuls of gritty sugar at the bottom of each bowl. Apparently eating the stuff makes one feel good. I learned from the best - how to binge AND hide it in plain view. My mom would binge at dinner and purge while doing the dishes. At every meal, actually. I was taught only the binge part (thank goodness, I think.) but realize its not serving me well. My body doesn't feel good. I've got swelling feet and hands, arthritic fingers, poor sleep and digestion and roller coaster emotions. Granted I'm not sure if the roller coaster emotions are the chicken or the egg... but I know the food, which I have been really disregarding, is a sign.

I've not felt depression like this since Twig came into my life. Not only during my pregnancy with him but also during his first several years of life. Never before or since that time in my life have I craved chocolate and avocado, nor have I felt so out of control of my food consumption. Out of control, period.

Wrecked is how I feel right now. And as much as I know what I need to do...