Yes, you have an eating disorder

When you think of eating disorder, do you think thin?

People who go without food or eat then throw up are put into this horrific category of having an eating disorder. Wouldn’t you think the opposite would be true also?

“But we don’t have a disorder… we just have an addiction.”

WRONG!

If you binge (compulsive overeating) how is that any better than anorexia? You’re still killing your organs with potential permanent damage.

If you binge purge (eat until you throw up) how is that any better than bulemia? Throat destruction, organ damage, even higher on the mental damage.

I pulled that from here.

Just like bulemia and anorexia, this is a mental disorder. That doesn’t mean you’re crazy. It means your brain triggers are set to food. Their’s is set to skinny. An alcoholics is set to alcohol. Drug addicts go for the high. We all have one thing in common- ease the pain.

It doesn’t matter what the pain is, we think we can fix it by actually harming our body.

That thought is what helps me with my eating disorder. I finally realized the extra pain was making things worse.

Before I go on, I would like to note that now that we realize this, our first order of business is mentally apologize to any people with disorders that we’ve looked down on.

And on the same note, if you share this with someone and they treat it like it’s nothing, remind them this can kill you if you don’t start to fix it. High cholesterol, depression, organ failure, heart failure, diabetes, and sleep apnea aren’t things to just blow off.

Let me take you back to over a year ago.

I have Wednesday night and Thurs night off of work. To let my husband sleep in I take the kids to school Weds, Thurs, Friday.

Wednesday morning I figure I’m up, I have the whole day, I should enjoy some breakfast. I get a breakfast burrito from OC Burger (its a two person burrito), head home with it. When I finish it, I go to bed for a few hours. Wake up, have cereal. Find a few snacks. Get the kids from school. Sit down and play WoW. Eat while playing. Take the kids out for our “date night”. Go to Ted-E’s and get their burger combo (double patty huge burger, fries, large soda) and a family size fire bites (deep fried jalapenos, chips, and queso). Play WoW till my husband says its time to go to bed.

Thurs. get the kids to school, come home and eat and play WoW, wait for Josh to leave for work, head to McDonalds or some place with a dollar menu, spend 10-20$ on the dollar menu, eat the food until I throw up, wait a while, eat the rest of the food before I pick the kids up from school. Go to my room and cry. Take a nap. Take the kids out for dinner.

Friday, same thing as Thurs except we go to the grocery store for groceries we never use because we always eat fast food, have a donut while shopping, grab a candy bar on the way out.

In that whole thing do you ever see me write “feel better about myself”? No! Why? Because what I was doing made me feel like crap. I felt like a freak. It was embarrassing to have no control over my food because for some reason my brain always rationalized it for me. I could literally feel the problems with my body. Everything took more effort than it should have, I was having daily headaches and migraines, I was always angry, I had frequent chest pains. Life just sucked.

I sound pretty gross too right? Like I should be all greasy and rolly and horrible, using a scooter at the grocery store because I’m lazy…?

Ask my family what I looked like. I looked like everyone else… I didn’t even look like I weighed the 305 lbs that I did. I didn’t look sad. I didn’t look like someone who had no control over her health. It was hard to, but I kept up with the work around me.

I decided to go to OA (overeaters anonymous). I ended up going to the worst run OA ever. You know what I found? A group of women sitting around a table rationalizing their own eating habits and acting like a victim. It wasn’t their fault they were overeaters. It wasn’t their fault they pulled food from the trash (most compulsive eaters have been known to do it), it wasn’t their fault they had to hide it. They were victims.

You know what “victims” don’t do? They don’t fix things. They let everyone else try to fix it for them.

You know what a victim is in the middle of trying to fix it? A “warrior”

You know what a victim is called when they fix things? A “survivor”.

I’m really not trying to make anyone feel like crap here. I’m putting this out here because I want to help you fix it. I can’t do it for you but I can at least walk with you.

I’m a warrior. I haven’t fully fixed it but believe me I’m showing the gym I’m the Chuck Norris of fixing my own body. I’m letting McDonalds know I can get full off of bananas and they can put their dollar menu up their — and light it on fire. Do I have a set back every now and then? Yup. A lot recently to be honest (injuries have really gotten to my head and a lot is going on in our lives right now  I’ve gone back to excuses temporarily). Remember, this is mental. I’m basically fighting myself. But I can do this. And so can you. You can teach yourself how to rethink.

You can start by reminding yourself that hurting yourself is not going to make anything better. It’s not going to fix your financial or health crisis. It’s not going to make someone love you or notice you. It’s not going to make your job better. Life happens. Why not let health happen to? I promise you that you will be so much happier with a clean diet than a binge diet. I promise you will enjoy the high of getting your heart rate up past 140 and staying there for at least 40 minutes. You will enjoy people walking up to you and saying you look amazing.

You will enjoy owning your own body again.

Admit that you’re a binger. It’s ok. You’re not a freak. And now you know you at least have one person on your team. I bet if you admit the problem to your family and friends, they will do their best to help you also.

Sleep is for the weak! Now give me a donut.

There are two things that make me binge.
1. I’m under a lot of stress or pressure and don’t know how to talk to people about it or I’m embarrassed about the situation.
2. I’m absolutely exhausted and can’t/refuse to sleep. (What I’m talking about today)

Welcome to working motherhood.
Some days I feel like Jesse Spano in the “Give me my pills!” episode of Saved by the Bell. Not the part where she’s singing the I’m so excited song. I hate that song. The part where she’s saying “There’s never any time, no time!” and then fixing that by doing something stupid. In my case, it’s refusing to sleep.

So what do I do instead of sleep? You would think it would be the things I want to get done but nooooooooo, it’s always watching movies. That’s all I have energy for when I don’t sleep. But you know what? I’M NOT SLEEPING AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD! That’s literally the little pity party I throw in my head.

I have a lot of resolutions to make in my life. The easy thing would be to prioritize them and do what I can. That’s easy to say but not to do.

I want to spend

an hour a day just hanging out with my kids. (1 hr)

an hour a day cleaning my house and getting it ready for the move (2 hr)

an hour at the gym for dance class (3hr) (4hr with driving)

an hour practicing my instructing (5hr)

an hour working on my book or blog(6hr)

make a good dinner and eat with the family (7hr)

spend an hour with Josh (8hr)

Even with a job and getting enough sleep I should have enough time, right? Wrong. Add in the time it takes to get ready for work and get to work, the half hour lunch I’m required to take at work, the time to drive home from work, the time it takes to wind down from work, the 20 times a day I’m woken up because I sleep during the day because of work, or the insomnia I get from working nights.Then add in the time it takes to resolve issues with your kids or things that get in the way when I do actually start to clean or write.

One thing has to go and it’s always sleep. But that leaves me tired from lack of sleep. So what do I do with my time? The easy stuff.

NEW LIST OF PRIORITIES

an hour a day just hanging out with my kids… and frequently check facebook (1 hr)

Cleaning wash dishes required for dinner and facebook time(2 hr)

an hour at the gym for dance class (3hr) (4hr with driving)

practicing my instructing  facebook time (5.5hr)

 

an hour  half hour working on my book or blog(6hr)

make a good dinner and eat with the family (7hr)

spend an hour half hour with Josh because thats all the time we have left before I need to get ready for work(8hr)

run out the door screaming “Oh crap I’m late for work!” (late for work hr)

While it sounds like facebook is the culprit, it’s really not. It’s just what I have energy left for. You try 6 years of broken sleep and feel like cleaning a house.

Then I try to make up for it on Wednesday by saying “I’ll only sleep 3 hours so I’ll actually be tired tonight (it’s my off night) and I can get stuff done on my list of things to do”. Play the fail music because that never happens! Instead I get the boys to school, set my alarm, lay down, crash till my alarm goes off at noon, glare at alarm, utter cuss word, go back to sleep.

So how does this make me binge?

Every now and then I get this urge on a Wednesday to get stuff done. “TODAY WILL BE THE DAY!” is all that goes through my head. Since I get off at 6, I’ll stop and get the boys some breakfast… end up getting myself some too because I’m tired and my body screams for food. When I get them to school I’ll sit down with my shake and a banana and relax before I get stuff done. Find something on the internet I just HAVE to watch. Grab a snack. Watch the thing. Find a link on that that I have to watch. Grab a snack. Watch the link. Josh will wake up and ask why I’m still up. I’ll say I’m going to bed. I’ll go to sleep. As usual, something will wake me up within a few hours. I’ll get up intent on getting stuff done since I’m already up. Grab a snack. Sit down for a second. Fall asleep till my alarm goes off to get the kids. Utter cuss word. Get the kids. Grab a snack. Help them with their homework. Grab a snack. Head off to Southlake for my hip hop class and grab them dinner on the way. Get myself some dinner too because I’m starving even though I’ve done nothing but eat and sleep. Go to dance class. Find an excuse to get a snack on the way home. Snack until Josh gets home. Go to bed.

For those of you who don’t know, that’s called grazing. Yah, just like cows. It’s what a binger does to make themselves feel better when their body is not able to function the way they want it to. Why is mine not functioning? Because I decided not to sleep that day. So to make up for that lack of energy and my feeling of blah, my mind tells me that I’m starving. I will literally get hunger pains and get sick to my stomach if I don’t eat.

And heaven forbid something comes up where I can’t go to hip hop. Instead of a quick bite to eat, I’ll take my kids somewhere to get food and order enough food that I have to make up a story on why I need food for at least one more person to make myself not look as pathetic as I feel.

Let me give you an example of one of those wednesdays… Yesterday

Got off work. Decided to get my kids donuts. Got myself 2. Got kids to school. Sat down with a starcrunch, watched half a movie. Saw another movie in the side bar. Clicked on that one. Grabbed a protein bar. Watched that movie. Josh got up and asked why I was still up. I went to bed. Guy selling meat knocked on the door 2 hours later. He wouldn’t stop knocking so I got up. I told him we’re vegetarians even though I love cow. I decided to stay up and clean the living room but I needed to eat first. Made a sandwich. Sat on couch to eat the sandwich. Fell asleep. Dog ate sandwich. Woke up to my alarm. Got kids from school. Made a protein shake. Ate an oatmeal bar. Got stuck helping kids with homework till it was too late to go to class. They were frustrated with me because I kept falling asleep while helping them. Took them out to Jack in the Box to apologize. Let them get whatever they wanted so I got whatever I wanted AND whatever my imaginary friend wanted. Watched a movie with them. Put them to bed. Sat down with a wine cooler and two starcrunch. Went to bed with Josh. Woke up still exhausted. Instead of going back to bed for an hour, I decided to blog about my little days of insanity, blog has now taken me over an hour to write.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.- Albert Einstein.

I’m sorry, but a man who can’t tie his shoe does not get to categorize me as insane. While it actually does, I’m going to refuse that this quote refers to people like me. So I’m going to give you an excuse and you’re going to believe it…

I keep doing this because I’m hoping the next time I will be able to stay up and get everything done and have ONE day that actually goes to plan. I can be the working June Beaver. I can keep the house clean, the kids and the husband happy, bring in an income, and still work on my own goals, can’t I? Don’t answer that. We all already know the answer. I’m just not satisfied with that answer.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s been over an hour since I checked facebook…