"How dreary – to be – Somebody"

"I have a VERY important question 4 u..." read the text message from a very old friend I had seen for the first time in about six months last night, and who is not given to hyperbole.

I received the text about a half hour later than he'd sent it. "Been in a movie, sorry. What?!" I responded.

"I'll call u when I get home. I just had a horrible xperience that I know u can help me with."

"OK, really hope you're OK."

"I'm ok, it was just upsetting on a number of levels," he wrote.

I spent the whole 45 minutes until he called panicking. I wracked my brain for what awful thing I could have done, what horrible thing he could have learned about me from some random person in New York. I couldn't think of anything bad I had said about him full stop, never mind to anyone we know in common.

When his name finally flashed up on my phone I answered nervously, waiting for the anger in his voice. There was none. The issue was serious – in an existential crisis type way, not a life-threatening one -- but it wasn't about me. He just wanted my help.

The wave of relief was so huge I had to focus particularly hard not to be so swept up in it that I couldn't help him. (I do blame at least a tiny piece of all on a kind of BN2 post-traumatic stress disorder, because I always did something wrong in his eyes, and 99 percent of the time I was unaware of it until he unleashed his fury.)

Part of the binge eating cycle is the endless drama. Everything is either too much to deal with (too full, too fat, too tired, too something) or not worth dealing with until it becomes impossible to ignore. Forget the elephant in the room – I can avert my eyes, or creep around-- the elephant has to be standing on my toes.

I don't want to say I crave drama, but it certainly seems to be a familiar way of life if you don't deal with anything until it's a crisis. Or if you sometimes say things you know you shouldn't – OK, OK, gossip or lie  – because you can't think of any other way to connect, or because you're afraid of being honest about how you really feel, or if you're so drugged out on sugar that you're not really thinking properly. I'm not proud of it, but I've done all of these.

I lead a pretty quiet life these days compared to the one I used to have. It's even quieter when you remove – as I have been trying to –all the noise in my head that comes from simply telling the truth about what I need and want.

The other day I felt a little sorry for myself, thinking just how quiet my life has been for the past couple of weeks. But today's episode was a useful reminder of how little I miss the anxiety and even terror of being found out. Dare I even admit that the idea crept into my head that sometimes it feels good to be me. Just me.

Day 15.