Minerva; Confessions of a Food Addict.

[Jezebella]

Ah Min hun,

I know exactly how you are feeling, as you rightly picked up I have some control issues myself. My first thought is to talk to a therapist of some kind perhaps someone who is familiar with eating disorders? See if they have some ideas for you. The stress obviously affects you hugely. And obviously then, you need to exert control over other areas in your life ie with the food. However physically you do need to eat a little more at the moment, had I know but I really don't think you are going to eat the wrong things. Perhaps you need to learn to love food and be a little less afraid of it? Come and cook with me for a day, we can go to borough market and get very excited about ingredients. I really wish I could advise you more Min, but so not sure about these things myself. If you fancy I am always around for an IRL coffee/chat/hang out whatever you need.

Big hugs sweetie

Jez
xx

 

[thin_inside]

Min - go and meet Jez sometime. She's lovely and easy to chat to. And as a chef has fab ideas with foods so a trip to Borough market could be a fun time ang generate more enthusiasm for food again.

Hope you feeling better today :wave_cry:. xx

 

[Blonde Logic]

Meh. Just finding it hard to break the cycle. I actually honestly don't know how to get out anymore by myself - which is worrying.

Any suggestions?

To be succint - reread the advice you give others. You KNOW the things to do, you demonstrate that with your great supportive advise and ideas and tips, etc.

SO you have it in your head....you just need to "practice what you preach"....ya know?

DO for you, what you would have others do for themselves.

I hope you can see that, that part of you is full of wisdom to share, but yet for some reason you don;t apply that to yourself....do you know why?

Is your LLC someone you got on well enough with to go back and have a chat - I am sure she runs into this situation a lot and maybe she could help you. If not, how about a few sessions with a counselor, to help you find the balance you need?

<<<hugs>>>

 

[Minerva]

The problem isn't that I don't know what to do, or how to help myself. I know all the things I need to be doing not to be in this situation. It isn't about numbers on the scale or any feeling that I am "fat" - because I don't really care about those, I know I look fine - in fact I'm not feeling good, I feel too thin, frail and weak. My relationships I feel are slipping with people around me, and my moods are all over the place. It isn't a problem of not enjoying food - because when I do eat, I do very much enjoy what I have.

I guess my problem is control. My brain freaks out over the smallest things and then I can't concentrate on things I need to be doing. I also can't let myself slip back to who I used to be pre-LL. I find that terrifying. I don't want to see the 'fat-me' mentality come back. I don't want to lose what I've achieved. But the feeling I find dominating the most is the overwhelming desire to self-destruct. It's always been something I've had to fight with all my life in one form or another.
Yes, I want help. But I don't want to take it because I can't. It would mean to admit that I am weak. I've had to be strong ever since I was 4 when my mum died - and as long as I can remember there never was anyone who could help me on an emotional level. I've always had to deal with everything all by myself. Even now I still find it extremely difficult to make friends; pretty much the only friend I have in the world is my boyfriend.


I guess I've been through worse before though, much worse. And I did get better, albeit with a little intervention. I'll get through this too, everything will be ok.

 

[daisydoll]

oh min
i really hope you can sort this out.
as BL said you are so good at giving advice and helping everyone on here its such a shame you can't follow your own advice ( that doesn't quite sound right written down, but you know what i mean)

asking for help when you need it isn't weak - its actually being strong - strong enough to admit you need help.
I never ask for help as i see it as a failing on my part, i'm stubborn and don't want to admit i can't do something.

- but i know that is not right.
its actually a big failing on my part, i don't know why i'm like that. im not strong enough to admit i'm wrong/need help sometimes and i really wish i could at times.

it makes me sad when you say your boyfriend is the really the only friend you have - you seem like such a lovely person -if we lived nearer i'm sure we could be friends!! having friends who you can share stuff with certainly makes things easier.
but...you have lots of friends on here tho and don't forget that, we're all here to support you!

daisy x

 

[slendablenda]

Hi Min

Thanks for keeping in touch with us. I'm no expert but I do know that so many peope who help others and give good advice do it to keep the attention away from themselves and have a tendency to put themselves at the bottom of the pile -
does that seem familiar to you?
As I have said before, you have a very wise head on your young shoulders mainly because of all the emotional situations you have already had to deal with in your life.
Use that wisdom on yourself now.
How about your BF?Is he too close to be able to help youthrough this?
You are strong. As you say - you have had to be since much younger than you should have needed to be. Even the strongest of us need help sometimes.
Jez is offering you some help. Why not try? She will understand some of the emotions you are trying to handle.
Don't see it as a sign of weakness. It isn't.
Do you know the old saying :
Physician. heal thy self.
What would you be saying to someone else in this situation?
Love and hugs. xxx:jelous:

 

[Jezebella]

Just big hugs to ya Min on this chilly autumn evening.

Jez
xx

 

[Minerva]

I've found it, the explanation of ... everything. .. and it scares me deeply because it's all so true. Makes me want to run away, back in to my world, ignore the problem. It's safe there.

beat : Survivors Stories: Flora

 

[Blonde Logic]

Hey Min.


I read about half of the article, and while it certainly does sound similar to some of the feelings you have expressed, one needs to be very careful with "Internet Self-Diagnosis".

But - just the fact that you are relating to an issue that contains the word Anorexia - I strongly urge you to seek some professional help and advise, and not rely on stories on the internet, etc., as you could really set yourself up for a complete and total mind-f***.

Seeking help, and admitting you have a 'problem' is a sign of strenght. Doing nothing about it and hiding from it, is where the real weakness lies.

Be careful hon, I think you are on a very slippery slope.

You take care now, and please think about getting some help. All of us here care about you, but none of us are professionals and our advise comes from the heart - but not necisarily what you really need right now.

<<hugs>>

xx

 

[Jezebella]

A very interesting read Min, and certainly something to think about. I would follow BL's very wise suggestions though and do not self diagnose of the interwebs.

Having said that, it does however, sound like what happened to my mom about 10 years ago. To sum it up briefly, we were running the restaurant which entailed loads of work and long hours, too much of the good stuff, wine and rich food made her put on a bit and she started rationing herself on things. My dad then decided that they would go and run a hotel in West Africa for a year which she did not really have a choice in. I moved back from CT (an annoyance to me because I was very happy at the time, but family calls etc) to run our business. This is when things got really out of hand with my mom. She felt she had no control at all - did not help she was starting with menopause. She restricted her food and placed harsher and harsher conditions on herself. Drank cider vinegar every day before eating (apparently it helps the metabolism?) Started eating off side plates in tiny amounts. She got so thin, I saw her naked one day and thought omg you look like a starving person - all bones. It was the only way she felt she could have control, in a world spinning out of control. She worked herself very hard. But the lack of food, lack of anything really and her menopause really started having an effect. I remember her sitting there one day and we had made a tiny portion of lunch for her on a side plate. Less than you would feed a child, and she just sat there and cried. The west african venture was a failure and she ended up having a complete breakdown. Resulting in some time on medication. For her it was not about the food per se, but the control in her life. She is much better now, 10 years on, but still does control what she eats and has certain mental restrictions. A hard thing to see in someone you care about. I think I went the other way with food to prove a point to her almost. I embraced it even more because she rejected it. Food always signified love in our family.

Sorry all a bit of a ramble here.

Jez
xx

 

[Minerva]

Nah, I wasn't self-diagnosing, it just so happened to be an article by someone who had annorexia. I don't have it, no worries.
Just a lot of her obsessional cycles rung true, how she used food as a way of controlling the uncontrollable situations elsewhere in her life. There were also a whole bunch of other things that I identified with to do with fading personal emotion and displacements. How terrified I become if someone else meddles with things. And that constant yes/no rational/irrational cycle.

Thank you very much ladies, I very much appreciate your inputs. I was just looking for a few clues towards how to break this ocd type behaviour before it slipped into something all together more nasty!



Thanks Jez for sharing that... I really do hope your mum is much better now, I suppose it can indeed be very difficult to see someone you love slip into such a strange cycle. It's funny how some mechanisms take over just to keep us 'sane' in some way, in the face of complete uncertainty.
Food in my family has always been used as a 'comfort' thing also, when we get sick? eat something. Reward? eat something -- and so on. ... So I pretty much developed a binge eating type of behaviour, I ate, and I couldn't stop even when I was physically bursting. Now post-LL, in the face of this University degree, and life spinning out of control, I find comfort in having control over something that can be my own little private world and I don't have to share it.

 

[KD]

Thank you very much ladies, I very much appreciate your inputs. I was just looking for a few clues towards how to break this ocd type behaviour before it slipped into something all together more nasty!

Personally, I think we just have to do the old fashioned way, until we find our own answers.

These days we look for reasons, and techniques to make it all easier, and hopefully we find them. My greatgrandmother would have said Just Do It.

Sort of reminds me of a conversation I had with a fellow teacher the other day. I had mentioned how we learnt our times tables parrot fashion, without understanding what they were about and how they worked. These days, they learn the reasons first. I think this helps some, but many would be fine the 'old fashioned way'.

I know when I got to goal, I was pretty 'techniqueless', and I hung in there just knowing that I Just Had to Do it. Then I found my answers after that to make it easier. My logic had to come first otherwise I could do serious damage hanging around until someone gave me the key.

That's not to say I never binged (which was my big problem), but logic stopped me doing it more often and helped me keep them to occasionally instead of frequently while I did my research

 

[Jezebella]

Hey Min

Hope you are having a wonderful and relaxing Sunday. Still thinking of you very much hun, and sending you good and happy thoughts. All will be well, we just have to have faith and trust the process. Even when times seem the hardest and the darkest, try to remember we always come out of the darkness, into a brighter place, stronger and wiser. It never seems like it at the time, when you are stuck in that place, but having suffered from serious depression and other things, I know it is possible to come out and be ok - even when that thought seems impossible and all you want to do is curl up and wish the world away.

Jez
xx

 

[PurpleButterfly]

Hey min. Just found your blog here. I'm so sorry to hear that you're having such a difficult time at the moment. The advice and support the others have been giving has been fantastic I see, I haven't really got much to add. Just take one day at a time and tackle one issue at a time, it's all a journey but we only make progress forward by making the right choices each day. And just remember, every day is a fresh new day that you get the opportunity to make good choices in.

[[[[[[hugs]]]]]]

 

[Minerva]

I guess I don't quite know what to say today... Sometimes this cycle is exactly what I need to keep calm in the face of so many demands of my world. But sometimes this cycle prevents me from achieving my goals.

So it's a win/win and lose/lose situation.

I'm safe and warm inside my rituals and control and restriction because it provides clear boundaries of where I am and where I should be. But then somewhere on the outside of this bubble, my rational mind is watching and screaming for me to stop this self destruction.


But all I know is, I will get through it. With the support I receive from my dearest friends here (I love you guys! :hug99: ) and with the support of my wonderful boyfriend who's seen me through much worse before... It's just the realisation, the TRUE realisation of when I actually need help. Because it's always so easy to slip back into the comfort zone and pretend everything is ok!

 

[slendablenda]

You are right Min

We all build our safety zones around us for self-protection in different ways.
The fact that you recognise the reasons behind how you feel/behave, you are half way there.
We all neeed control, sometimes it just goes too far.
As you say, you've come through worse than this before. You'll do it again I'm sure xx












. Sometimes it gets a bit out of control and becomes obsessive behaviour

 

[Morticia]

Nothing much more to add Min, just wanted to say take it easy and keep coming here for support.

 

[thin_inside]

:hug99::hug99:
xx

 

[PurpleButterfly]

Hey hun. How you doing?

 

[Jezebella]

So good to hear from you Min, hope the week wasn't too arduous and the studies are going well Also hope you have some me time set aside for the weekend.

Jez
xx