A few years ago, I was walking around my local supermarket when I met a retired colleague and stopped to chat. In the course of the conversation she suddenly took my hand and asked me quietly “you’re not sick, are you?” Possibly she was asking because of my layers of clothes, scarf and gloves when the weather wasn’t actually freezing. Mostly I knew she was asking because of the weight loss. Back then, it felt very triumphant. Now, it just feels sad. It feels sad because although she obviously thought I might be physically ill, the answer was actually that yes, I was very sick. I wonder what might have happened if I had been able to admit to it or even been aware of it.
Recently, on a bit of a whim, I joined a weight loss class. My history of these groups has never been very productive. They would tell me how many ‘points’ I could have in a day and I would immediately start to figure out how many I could do without by skipping breakfast, lunch… But desperation has been seeping in for a while. Comfort eating and medication have led to steady weight gain in the past two years and it’s become a stick to constantly beat myself with. My whole life has been a battle with food and eating, whether or not the disorder is “active”, the thoughts, rituals and inner critic remain at full strength-the only constant.
So I decided to try weight loss programme in the most sensible way I could. I had a good try at telling the class leader that depression and anxiety meds were some but not all of my problem. She was very nice and gave me a goal that seems achievable but not extreme.
When I’ve spoken to my therapist about different times in my life when I started the patterns of destructive restricting she’s pointed out how those times were so chaotic that I latched on to food as something I could control. It’s a cliché but one that is true.
In the weight loss programme class the teacher in the middle of her encouraging talk, spoke about the benefits of a healthier eating pattern and said:
‘There’s so many horrible things going on around us and here’s one thing we can control, what we put in our mouths’.
I sat transfixed as everyone smiled and nodded. If ever proof was needed of everything being relative! What could be a comforting point to one person was, to me, the thing that time and time again I have used to control chaos.
In the 24 hours after the meeting, I cooked three meals for myself and made a pot of soup. That doesn’t sound like much but compared to recent months it’s pretty good. I realised that I had lost motivation for preparing meals, something that I always enjoyed.
If you have a propensity for disordered eating, depression is probably one of the worse things that can happen to you. You have an illness that either takes your appetite or causes you to crave the foods that need to be eaten in moderation. You have a voice in your head that agrees with the one already there constantly criticising you. Between them, they have the power to wear you down. Physically and emotionally.
In writing this, I think I am questioning my motives in embarking on this (we’re not supposed to use the word “diet”) plan and mostly I find that they are honourable. I am taking control and it seems to be for the right reason. I am not choosing this, as I have many times in the past, to block out everything else. I am not thinking that if I can only lose weight everything will be alright. I have asked my doctor about reducing the meds and accepted his opinion that the job they are doing needs to take priority. I am simply choosing to be healthier and if I have to keep examining my reasons why then so be it.
Someday I really want to lay down my weapons in this battle with myself.
Support information:
- BodyWhys Ireland
- The Samaritans – Tel: 116 123 or email: jo@samaritans.org
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