October 4, 2009, Sunday

I crashed. I weighed myself on Friday and saw that not only did I not lose but gained a pound and went crazy. I was depressed. I kept telling myself I had failed although I also told myself that my blood work came back looking not bad and my blood pressure is now normal. It does not have to be taken several times before it is normal. Still, I crashed. I felt shame and could not write anything here and ate things I should not have eaten. I could not tell if what I was eating was to satisfy my mental hunger or my body hunger.

I need to develop qualities within myself that will give me some reliable resources that when this strikes again, and it will, I will be prepared to respond it in ways other than than eating. One person I know says that when she is in this situation, she sees it as an opportunity as she knows there is an issue brewing that she has not addressed yet and she looks forward to it. I feel that way about depression and never thought about exploring it as I do depression.

The first thing she does is journal it which is what I do. Second, she describes what she is feeling and the images that is running through her mind. She puts down where she is, who she is with and what is going on with her life in a general way.

In the Book "When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies", the authors Hirschmann and Munter (Please see biography), call this sort of crash "mouth hunger and state that it is generally triggered by one of three situations:

1. When we feel in danger of being overwhelmed by our feelings;
2. When we feel the guilt that follows "forbidden" feelings or thoughts (the sense that we have broken a taboo)
3. When we feel like a failure in any context.

The book had discussions about being overwhelmed by our feelings (1) and forbidden feelings(2) but I could not find any discussions about feelings about being a failure. It was not in the index either. I looked for it because it was evident that I felt that I failed when I weighed myself last Friday. I felt like an utter failure. Maybe I was feeling good about myself because I had registered some loss of weight, had dropped my high blood pressure and the sugar level was lower than it was before. I knew this, but saw the scale and let it dictate to me that I was a failure.

What was going through my mind, was that I felt sped up by the events in my mind and I wanted to run away from being myself. I felt I was a bad person. I remember as a kid that the relative that I loved the most, my aunt, judged me by the amount of weight that I carried. She was always on me to lose. Everyone was on me to lose and at the time I was not that overweight at all, not like I am now. No one ever appreciated what I did accomplished. No one ever went to my graduations from high school, college with a bachelor and master's degree and never got a card of congratulations from either of them. I never got anything except when I had a baby. Not even when I was discharged from the military with a honorary discharge. I was always judged by my weight. The first thing they asked me on the phone when I called was my weight. I never asked them about theirs. I guess I was feeling anger, white hot anger. I never was arrested or had drug problems and was consistently employed unlike my brother and sister. Still, I was judged by my weight.

Now, that I am writing this down, I can see that I am carrying an attachment to a time that is long past. I am carrying an attachment to people's opinions who have died long ago. That also reminds me of a dream in which I am in a cemetery full of shallow graves and they keep coming to the surface, their dead feet and heads sticking out of the ground.

My goal in the eating department is to eat from stomach hunger and not from mind hunger. There are many terms for this difference, but this is what I have always called them. There is the saying of comfort foods. One of the biggest comfort foods was macaroni and cheese. I tried so many different kinds that were gluten free that I gave up finding one that worked until I found Amy's Macaroni and Cheese. It is a small pie of macaroni and cheese. It tastes just like the real one and ever so often I treat myself. I haven't with this latest quest but I know a store, Raley's, that sells it. Another one is pancakes and I have an unopened package of it in the bottom drawer of my refrigerator. I know if I am hungry a cup of coffee with half and half will usually calm me down; so that is my first line of defense. There is ice cream in the freezer that is for guests and I try very hard not to eat it. I haven't for the most part.

I am going to try and remember when the same thing happens and I want to crash to open a window here and write about what is happening. It might happen today because my ex-husband will be in town with my oldest son in a few hours. I don't want to see him so it should go smoothly, but who knows. I will try and remember to write about it before I eat about it.


I went out to dinner with my ex-husband and my two sons and although he tried to bait me, I did not say anything. I said hello and just ordered a salad and iced tea. We were at Red Robin's and they had a special gluten free menu. It was so nice to be able to order from that menu. The dinner went well and I thought about what I wrote above. I did not get agitated or upset. I would have normally have and ate french fries which I did not. It is possible to beat this demon with the help of some mindfulness.