Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes

One of the big stumbling blocks to recovery that I’ve just tripped over these past few days is the bizarre fear that after only a week or two of getting more consistent nutrition, of following my meal plan much more closely and binging and purging much less often, that I might have lost the ability to restrict and lose weight.  That the food might now have control of me and any weight I’d put on was permanent and bound to keep increasing because even if I wanted to stop eating so much I couldn’t do it.

From the perspective of having backed off my meal plan and seen my weight start to move in the right direction again I can see this as lunacy.  Two weeks of eating regular meals wasn’t going to result in my losing an “ability” which has been with me for more than a year now, especially not if 2 months in a treatment centre didn’t deprive me of this “ability.”  The whole thing is just plain silly.  In retrospect.

From the perspective of having started to eat regularly it feels very, very different.  Feeling yourself get hungry in anticipation of meals when you’re used to never feeling hungry at all is scary.  Noticing that I’m enjoying the food I eat and the feeling of not having to throw it up after eating it is absolutely terrifying for me.  From the perspective of having gone two weeks without seriously restricting or trying to lose weight all I could think about was the times when I have lost control and seen my weight shoot up 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds from binging.  Sure, those times were quite a long while ago now.  But it feels like it could happen any moment.  One day I’m eating a meal plan the next day I’m eating everything in sight and can’t stop myself.

On a slightly different topic, I think Josie is right about this being much more a motivation problem than a problem of ability.  When my heart is in it I can do the right things for my recovery.  I’ve already admitted I avoid OA meetings out of the fear that I might accidentally catch recovery off people.  If I could go a week without binging and purging let’s face it- I could go longer.  It’s a matter of wanting it, and it’s a matter of believing it’s worth doing.  For now I am still deeply doubtful and ambivalent because I can picture myself following a meal plan but I can’t picture myself leading a life that doesn’t require some kind of numbing agent to take the edge off.