Dirty Little Secret

I have a secret. It's something that disgusts me to my core, and I can't believe I'm going to expose myself like this. I'm sure once it's out in the universe, I'll hate myself even more, and I'll wish I had never posted this.

I need to get this out though, because I'm scared that my secret might be slowly killing me, and maybe, just maybe, spilling my guts will help me muster the strength to regain control over myself. For the umpteenth time.

I have a very unhealthy relationship with food, that started when I was 12 or 13 years old. I won't go into the how or why though, to protect the not so innocent. I ping-ponged back and forth between starving myself, and binging and purging throughout high school and college. 

I'm pretty sure a few people suspected, but nobody ever confronted me about it. Especially not my family, because in my family, we didn't discuss anything ugly or negative. We just pretended it didn't exist.  

I could go for periods of time without any issues, and then something would send me back down the rabbit hole. It would happen whenever I was stressed. Or depressed. Whenever I felt fat(ter than usual.) Or when I was feeling invisible, unwanted, or unworthy. Or if I failed at something. Oh, and that time my college ballet teacher said I needed to lose 15lbs, to increase my chances of being hired by a dance company.

After leaving college, and getting married, I had things mostly under control for a really long time- for years actually. 

Something shifted along the way though, and instead of my emotions and stressors causing me to starve myself, or binge and purge, I started overeating. 

And then I catapulted into full blown binge eating.

And I can't stop. 

I'm so out of control right now that I want to crawl into a hole and never come out. 

**********************

That's how this post started eight months ago. I've written, deleted, and re-written this so many times that I've lost count. And then I stopped writing because I was so horrified at the thought of confessing this to the world. I'm scared of being thought of as disgusting. Or even worse, being thought of as weak. Because isn't that what society thinks of overweight people? 

I'm really not even sure that anyone would actually care about my problem, because most people don't want to hear about the unpleasantness in someone else's life. 

But I decided that I needed to do this for myself. If anyone thinks less of me for something I've struggled with for the better part of 30 years, then so be it.

The other reason this took me so long to post, is that I was trying to get it all out, without sounding tragically hopeless and damaged beyond repair- which is ironic in itself, since at the time that I created this blog (a year and a half ago) I felt that I was broken beyond repair. I'm happy to be able to say that I no longer feel that way. 

Well, I'm still cracked around the edges, but who isn't?

Anywhoo, during the months that I struggled with writing every word of this post, a funny thing happened (funny weird, not funny haha.) It was the beginning of September, and my 43rd birthday was approaching. I decided to focus, and force myself to really dig down deep. I started remembering how I had fought so hard to overcome my problems so many years ago.  

And now it's December, and I haven't binged. 

Not.even.once.

I tried to last week though. I was having an emotional morning, and I went to the store, and, as if in autopilot, I navigated to the cookie aisle and grabbed one of my go-to emotional crutches. I added some healthy things to my basket, so I wouldn't appear to be some disgusting pig who was buying nothing but a package of Double Stuff Oreos. 

The cashier rang-up my items, and as she got to the cookies, I got self-conscious and anxious. 

The cashier commented on how delicious she remembered them being, and how she hadn't had Oreos, or any cookies, for years, because she tries to eat really healthy all the time. (I think people with that kind of self control must have something clinically wrong with them!)

I was horrified that she would think the cookies were for me, so I said something about how much my kids like them, making sure she understood they weren't mine!

The entire drive home, all I could think about were the cookies in my shopping bag. I got home, and tore into the package immediately. 

I ate three cookies, and then stood in my kitchen looking at the package in disbelief. There was no feeling of satisfaction. The cookies weren't filling up the gaping hole inside of me!

I stared at the package of Oreos for a few minutes, and the next thing I knew, I was dumping it into the trash! 

Although I've managed to not binge in the last four months, I still have my battles. I still hate my body and my appearance. I still think about food constantly. I still often eat in secret. I still avoid food in social settings. Actually, I do my best to avoid social settings altogether. For years now, I have avoided seeing old friends, and meeting new ones. 

And now, I have the overwhelming task of undoing all of the damage I have done to my body. Or at least as much of it as I can. 

I will probably always battle this demon, but for now, I'm winning. And I'm happy to be winning one day at a time.