Learning to eat again, I have to examine my unconscious mind. I'm finding that, in order to heal, I must first examine the emotional turmoil that is stopping my mind and body from having proper responses to food. Where as a healthy person would it a food, and have an association in direct response to the food they ate and the subsequent experience they have, I myself experience free association and an onslaught of internal messages that cause me to spin round and round, and often times give up. Sometimes I make food and find myself presenting it to others to eat. I often don't eat the food.
Here are the words I think when trying to buy foods or eat them:
Diet. Too much. Slow Down. Starve. Die. Give Back. Spoiled. Calm Down.
I have "pots" syndrome, but it's just a word, and gives me many excuses to be critical about food. I've gone to the extreme, while coming off my prescribed psych meds in an effort to fully heal, I pretty much starved myself on an extreme diet. I was gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, organic. While it may be helpful for some, and probably a physically healthy choice, emotionally it was a disaster for me and the emotions took a toll my health as I dropped to less than 100 pounds. I looked like a chemo patient.
I woke up today and went and got McDonalds. Egg McMuffin and hashbrowns. I used to love McDonald's. I know it's not good for you. And I thought of the people who would chastise me for it, and I heard the words of I listed above, and I did it anyway. I am tired of living afraid of everything and having no sense of self.
I went to the grocery store and bought myself everything that looked good to me. Chocolate cake slice, pound cake, organic chocolate chip cookies, pomegranate, orange, apple juice, a non organic coconut oil in a plastic jar, bagels, potatoes, jiffy peanut butter with hydrogenated oil. Organic chicken nuggets. I took them upstairs.
My mother tends to overreact to food. She calls herself a "foodie" which drives me insane. Basically, she has to talk everything out around food. And I've taken on that trait in other ways. Her messages interceded with my own in childhood and I learned that being skinny was a very precious thing. I believe that I dissociated from my feelings of hunger pretty early on, as well as most of my feelings. For that reason I've been oblivious to the fact that I have what is called an eating disorder, "not otherwise specified". In effect, I don't feel hunger. Instead I feel a really strong sense of uneasiness, emotional confusion, perhaps a desire to control, and a sense of being overwhelmed. I'm having a really hard time processing basic feelings. So I'm learning to do this separate from other people, which is what I never learned before. This is probably why I cook food and bring it to others for approval.
I had a memory this morning, of a safe place for me, that I felt as a child. I generally don't feel safe places of aloneness. When I was a kid, on Saturdays, like today, I could go into my parents room with a pop tart and watch cartoons. I loved that. Nickelodeon. I remember the orange Nickelodeon logo. That was a completely self contained world for me. I had all I needed, even though it was small, and it was childish, I fed myself, and I did something I wanted and nobody was frustrating me or telling me what to feel or how to be, there was no yelling, there were no expectations.
In short, without being on prescription medications, I am reverting back to my former nature, and revisiting a much younger idea of self. Childhood was the time that framed my interpersonal relational model, and the body follows the lead of the mind. I took on the anger and feelings of loss that were around me and I turned those feelings inward on my body. Not eating was a way for me to express those emotions, in the most quiet, most un-seen way. Furthermore, the challenge for me in the future is to learn to let my presence be known, despite the feelings of others.
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