Sunday 27 January 2013

(And) Still Fighting It


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.