Well first I actually had a bit of a break down. But then I started a blog.
As with all good crying fits, life had definitely led up to this one. My 27th birthday recently passed, and, like most people when forced to acknowledge life passing, I have been even more painfully reflective than my usual. And I have begrudgingly had to admit to myself that, though I have been trying to believe otherwise all these years, I'm not really going to "grow out of" any of my issues. In fact, believing that (whether actively believing or sort of passively hoping) has probably made them worse.
For a very long time, I have struggled with a poor relationship with food. I started thinking I was fat in about 5th grade after some brutal teasing from classmates and boys I liked which led to an early and brief bout with Anorexia which led to a lifetime of issues with food. I keep trying to convince myself that it is normal and that everyone struggles with eating in some way (which is probably true), but I woke up today miserable enough to acknowledge how severe my issues have been. I am a food addict. I have disordered eating patterns (and related disordered thought patterns). Wanna know how I know? I'll give you just a very few examples of a very many realities. I lived in England for about 2 months when I was a sophomore in College. I really started to recognize I had a big problem with food during this time. After my host parents would go to bed (subsequent to a full day of eating appropriate amounts of food), I would sneak down in their kitchen and eat cookies, cheese, cake- whatever I could find- almost nightly. One time, I left one of their parties and snuck into the garage where the cakes that had just been served were stored and traveled in circles around to the different cakes eating small slices a quickly as possible because I wanted to get as much food in as I could before I got "caught". Sometimes I'll get home from work and just stand my kitchen tearing off pieces of cheese, pouring and repouring bowls of cereal, and eating spoonfuls of peanut butter. These eating episodes (binges) are always followed by immense guilt and some sort of plan to avoid this in the future. I've tried changing the way I store food, counting calories, eating more regularly, fasting, writing down everything I eat, reviewing notecards about eating, you name it....And did these work? Well, here I am at 27, the morning after a horrible binge full of cupcakes, bruschetta, pasta, etc. feeling guilty and having to be honest with myself. My relationship with food has become so distorted that I no longer taste food, I consume it. Somehow I want to redeem this relationship and once again be able to enjoy food. Eat when I am hungry and stop when I am full. Eat without guilt. Love my body. But this time I'm not making any dramatic plans. I am just working on being honest and admitting that there really is a problem. After all, the first step (of the famous 12) is to admit that I am powerless over food and that my life has become unmanageable. That admission is written all over this entry.
I am also not going to outgrow my attraction (addiction) to men that reject me. This also has a long and colorful history. After my first rejection in high school, I spent years trying to put myself in his path in the hallway (looking my best) to try to gain the approval of a guy that dumped me. Didn't work. His brief glances and sporadic instant messages were enough to keep me hooked though. And that is pretty much what I've been doing in some form ever since. I have also tried a variety of methods for changing this. Thirty day "He-toxes" where I am not allowed to contact a certain guy, reading a variety of books from empowered women, dating guys that I'm not attracted to simply because they are nice and because I am NOT attracted to them, and much more. Has this worked? Well, after reviewing a few pathetic text messages sent last night to the most recent rejector, I'm going to say- no. So, here I am admitting it. I am powerless over my addiction to toxic men and my life has become unmanageable.
There are more examples and more addictions, but this is a just humble beginning to a long journey of recovery for me. I guess I hope that someone out there will find my honesty here refreshing and feel a little less ashamed and a little less disgusting. There is something that is incredibly painfully freeing to put those things which you feel are unspeakable and incredibly shameful into the light. They lose some of the power that they have over you. There IS a problem. Admit it and admit that you are powerless over it. Go ahead.
One person's journey to living in the present moment (I realize that perhaps you can't journey to live in the present moment and perhaps making any goal is self-defeating in the world of zen, but I still have to try, no?)
Allaholic?
We're all ___aholics.
Addiction has been defined as “a state of being dependent on a certain substance, which is harmful or dangerous for the physical or mental health of the person, for his social well-being and economical functioning of the subject”. When you type the word ‘addiction’ into popular search engines, you find links for various substance dependence sites. When I sift through these sites, I find little information that is helpful to me; yet, almost daily I find myself making decisions that are bad for me- decisions that are harmful for my physical or mental health for my social well-being and economical functioning. I am not taking hits of crack or lighting any pipes. My drugs are not nearly so obvious to pinpoint. They do not come in powder nor plant form. My drugs are daily decisions that I make. Decisions to which I keep running back. I know they are bad for me, but they are so beautiful in the moment, and I am irresistibly compelled toward these decisions. Since no one is over my shoulder telling me that what I have is an addiction that is may be akin to a drug addiction, and that the cycles in which I find myself are not much different than the cycles of many other addicts, I find myself going around the same mountain over and over again.
Addiction has been defined as “a state of being dependent on a certain substance, which is harmful or dangerous for the physical or mental health of the person, for his social well-being and economical functioning of the subject”. When you type the word ‘addiction’ into popular search engines, you find links for various substance dependence sites. When I sift through these sites, I find little information that is helpful to me; yet, almost daily I find myself making decisions that are bad for me- decisions that are harmful for my physical or mental health for my social well-being and economical functioning. I am not taking hits of crack or lighting any pipes. My drugs are not nearly so obvious to pinpoint. They do not come in powder nor plant form. My drugs are daily decisions that I make. Decisions to which I keep running back. I know they are bad for me, but they are so beautiful in the moment, and I am irresistibly compelled toward these decisions. Since no one is over my shoulder telling me that what I have is an addiction that is may be akin to a drug addiction, and that the cycles in which I find myself are not much different than the cycles of many other addicts, I find myself going around the same mountain over and over again.
Let me give you an example. When I was 21, I was dating this guy named Alan. When Alan introduced himself, he said, “I work with computers”. I think, “Oh, a computer programmer! That’s a good job!” Turns out, Alan was a receptionist who happened to work in front of a computer. I should have gone running in the other direction from this obvious lying loser, but, unfortunately I did not. The first night we hung out was a blast. He was buying my friends and I rounds of drinks, we were hitting the dance floor hard, and he was telling me how excited he was to meet such an obviously smart and beautiful girl. He got my digits. “I’ll call you tomorrow” he promised at the end of the night. I did not hear from him the next day. I felt a little sad, but I accepted the rejection with dignity. This time. You see, I was not yet hooked. Alan eventually called with some excuse about how his dad had stopped by, and he had gotten in a fight with him and just could not talk afterward, but he added that he hoped I would please give him another chance. I did. This interchange pretty much made up our whole relationship. Sometimes the excuses were better than others. One time he actually told me he could not hang out with me because he had to help his friend clean a deer. But we went round and round this cycle for over a year. When we had a good time, it was so good. So fun. He was so attentive to me, so nice to my friends, so good at conversation and affection. But I could not have him. It would not last. And he kept me coming back and back for more. Each time I came back I had less dignity. I sacrificed more of myself. I planned my life around trying to “run” into him. I thought about him all the time. Drama from the relationship made my work suffer. Looking back there was so little real substance to our “relationship”. I was an addict seeking the next high. The next escape from my life. My reality. But I am getting ahead of myself.
I need to make sure you understand something right away. I am not an expert on addiction, and this blog is not intended to cover addiction research or literature. It will be a personal exploration of my addicitions which is intended to make you smile at points, to make you think at points, and to propose a view on life decisions that may help shape yours. As a natural observer and introspector, I have observed my repeated bad decisions (and those of my friends) and wondered why we continue to make the decisions that we do. I hope that you benefit from this blog as I know that these thoughts have greatly improved my decision making, and allowed me to be a good friend to others to help them make better decisions. I hope to be a friend to you as well. Because everyone needs a friend sometime to smack some sense in to them about their addictive habits.
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