A week ago, I paid some
$90 for three bites of dinner that made me feel sick.
It wasn’t the restaurant’s
fault – I’d binged beforehand. (I’m not sure how much I spent on that: $30?) I was set off, I think, by a mix of
frustration and loneliness. Frustration because a friend’s request that we meet
for dinner at 9:15 pm at an overcrowded restaurant that doesn’t take
reservations caused me so much anxiety and paralysis. Frustration that I
couldn’t reach anyone for advice. Frustration that after all of these years of
fighting, I am overweight again. Frustration that after all of these years of
fighting, I am still, well, fighting.
And shot through it all, like
chocolate in stracciatella gelato, the feeling of being utterly alone.
I have started and not
finished so many posts over the past month or so, but here is the thing: If I am honest, despite seeing a
nutritionist and a therapist I seem to be getting worse and not better.
(If I am optimistic, which I manage occasionally, I hope it is that I have to
get worse before I get better.)
I managed 29 days without a
binge right when I began seeing the nutritionist. Since then it has been
approximately one binge every week to 14 days.
I had hoped 2013 would be the
year I didn’t binge – I had made it to January 13, including a visit to friends
in Provence starting an artisanal ice cream business, without one. I’ve had two since then.
Still I don’t say tomorrow is
another day, because – as I try to remind myself – I don’t have to wait to stop
bingeing. I can stop right now.
