Love In The Time Of Bingeing

I have been unable to stop myself from binge eating lately. I have made myself physically ill on a number of occasions, doubled over in pain. This has been deeply upsetting. I feel like the progress I made with intuitive eating is going down the tubes largely because of my mood cycling, which often causes me to eat compulsively.

It is hard to love oneself when you are behaving in a way that's out of control and abusive to yourself. Can you love your abuser? I think I need to develop a sort of Stockholm syndrome - where I sympathize with my abuser (me). There are a few things I'd like to say.

Body: I AM SORRY for what I'm doing to you. Please forgive me, I know not what I do. (There's ALWAYS occasion for a Bryan Adams reference.)
Brain: Please stop fucking with me.

I've been feeling really down on myself but I am going to try my best to keep on being kind to me. I wish I had more guidance as to how to go about it. It's frankly counterintuitive to me - a life of self-abuse and abuse from others will do that to you. I wish I had readers so I could get some tips!

Why Can't You Be Nicer to Me?

It's been a while. I am going to try to continue to blog and write about my struggles with bipolar disorder, my eating issues, and my nasty bitchassery toward myself. I just got a new computer (yay!) so I think that will make it a little easier to get things going.

Cycles

I am in a bad cycle. I don't really know what else to say.

I'm trying to hold on to my life. To hold on to what's important and know that this won't last.

Amotivation: Why Put Off Until Tomorrow What You Can Do Next Week?

I have a terrible problem with amotivation and procrastination. Seriously. Some days at work I will just sit at my desk staring into space. I'll read blogs but I can't even really enjoy them because of the guilt I feel about not doing my work and the anxiety I feel about how, well, it eventually needs to get done.

I am having this problem right now as we speak (or as I type, I guess I should say).

I sound my barbaric yawp over the blogs of the internet - does anyone have any suggestions about this?

I'm laughing right now about the barbaric yawp since no one knows about this blog but me. I send this question out into the void and will see what happens.

Checking In On Resolutions

So it's now March 2nd, and I've been working on this "be kind to me" thing since November 1st, the 27th birthday of yours truly. So it's been 4 months. Let's see how it's been going:

Taking Care Of My Body: 
Intuitive Eating. I've been doing  fairly well with this. I try to cook my own meals, eat what I want, eat what will make my body feel good, etc. I do have a binge eating problem but it seems to be getting better.

Exercise. Meh. My walks (which really are great for my mood) are sporadic. I do a bit of strengthening exercises here and there, and I've been good about stretching most days. I haven't had the sack to go join the Y and swim. I literally dream about swimming, I want to do it so much. I really want to get over this bathing suit issue and woman up already. Still huffing and puffing getting up the stairs to my 4th floor walk-up apartment.

Sleep. Some ups and downs, but mostly a thumbs up here.

Going for a physical. Haha, no. Not there yet. But I did ask my psychiatrist to order a full work up when I went to get blood work, and apparently I'm healthy! Cholesterol, blood sugar, etc are ok. Thyroid slightly underactive but nothing to be worried about at this point. When are we going to be able to convince people that teh fatz can be healthy too?!?!

Going to the dentist.  I have an appointment for a cleaning in 2 weeks. Win!

Respecting My Body. Body love is a long way off but I have gotten much better about being respectful of my body, not having hurtful/nasty inner-monologues about my appearance, etc.

Taking Care Of My Mind: 
Seeing my therapist. Check and mate. Going twice a week and  committed to the process.

Seeing my psychiatrist. He's working on tweaking the meds. Hopefully we'll get there. But I am going to appointments and am also committed to the process here, so high five! Anyone? Anyone?

Meditation. Do this pretty much every morning for a few minutes.  I 'm very proud of this.

Taking Care Of My Spirit:
I lately have come to really stop believing in the concept of a spirit so I think I want to rename this category "Karma Police." 
Find a career that's meaningful to me (and helps others). Very little ground gained here. I applied to 2 MSW programs but don't think I even want to enroll, regardless of whether I get in or not. This is a tough one. I think I need to stop thinking about it and try to just get my feet wet trying new things. (FYI: I am scared of new things.)

Be kind to others. I try. I try really hard. This is by far the most important of all my mini-resolutions. When I'm dead if anyone remembers one thing about me, I would want it to be that I was kind to others. Sometimes with mood swings I want to rip peoples' faces off for even speaking to me or looking at me or making a noise in my general vicinity, but I am usually good about hiding this desire, and have a 100% rate of success in terms of not face ripping, which is pretty amazing when you think about it. <<Golf claps>>

Not too shabby! Will check in again, uh, at some point.

Bipolars of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!

I think I am going to attend a bipolar support group meeting on Wednesday. I'm kind of nervous.

One day a few years back I was in Barnes and Noble and the title of a book caught my eye: "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway." I didn't look at the book because as a general rule I try to stay away from the self-help section; I feel like most of it is a bunch of bollocks written by charlatans trying to make a buck off people who are struggling. But I did like that title. Maybe I'll give it a shot.

Song in my head today:

Am I Going To Keep Up With This Blogging Shit Or What?

I'll be straight: I had a bad reaction to a new medication I was tried on and was kind of out of commission for a bit. But I'm pulling myself out of the hole and trying to ease back into the game. I had actually completely forgotten about my little burgeoning blog, but thought of it today. I was looking at a bunch of tumblrs I like and I thought to myself, "I have a voice too! There is a mother fucking light inside me that needs to shine too!!!!"

Today I was thinking that instead of wasting time, energy, and resources on this horse shit "obesity epidemic" - maybe we should take some time to address a more serious issue, the fucking self-loathing epidemic. It hits minoritized and demonized populations the hardest, but no one is immune, not even the default person (straight white dudes, I know you feel it too). I have some more thoughts on this that I will get into those on a future post (maybe), but I just wanted to put this out there, just in terms of my own experience: There is nothing I have done in my life to deserve the level of hatred I have for myself. Like anyone, I have a heap of things I've done that I'm not proud of. But, I mean, do I strangle cats in my spare time? Do I punch babies in the face? Have I killed anyone? (Just to be clear: no.) It seems that the great sins I have committed are as follows:

• I have consumed more calories on an average day than my body burns.
• I have cystic acne and scaring on my face.
• I have scars on my arms and legs from a period when I was very sick and hurt myself.
• I'm bipolar.

There is no moral component to any of this, at all. And yet I berate and belittle and isolate myself because I feel as if no one could love someone so ... all of the above. It's got to stop, but I hardly know where to begin. I've had these feelings for quite some time; they won't go away overnight. I think I have taken a strong first step in giving up dieting. I'm trying to be comfortable in my own skin but it's hard. I'm going to keep reading the blogs of people who don't hate themselves (yay Fat Acceptance!) and hopefully some of it will rub off on me.

Sometimes, when I get sad, or feel alone with the above bulleted list, I imagine that "Hey Jude" was written especially for me. Just for me. Thanks Paul.