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If you suffer from an eating disorder now or have in the past, please email Joanna for a free telephone consultation.

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Eating Disorder Recovery
Joanna Poppink, MFT
Eating Disorder Recovery Psychotherapist
serving Arizona, California, Florida, Oregon and Utah.
All appointments are virtual.

 

Interestingly, I do feel very safe and secure, when my head hits the pillow I'm asleep within minutes, and I sleep well - I couldn't have said that 2-3 years ago, I have always been a very poor sleeper, which I realise was about hypervigilance due to fear of being abandoned by my mother....but none of that is an issue anymore.

I realise that I eat for every reason possible - for reward, for commiseration, for motivation, because I'm stressed, because I'm celebrating, because I "should" - as in I should sit with my girls and eat a decent home-cooked meal, regardless of how much food I've already secretly consumed, because if I don't eat it something will get wasted, or somebody will eat it and then I won't have had any (childhood stuff)...

...sometimes it's hard to pinpoint why, other than the overwhelming urge, sometimes even when I journal I get answers as to why I'm eating, but I don't know how to deal with them.

More often than not thesedays when I eat, it's either because I'm stressed or because I feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of a task ahead. I'm realising as I'm typing that it's a bit of a spiral at the moment, because part of why I'm eating is around the impact of getting this heavy again, and forget the psychological impact, just the physical impact - I get out of breath easily, my joints hurt, my range of mobility is reduced, none of my clothes fit anymore - I don't even own a coat that fits now that it's getting colder....in short, the magnitude of a lot of tasks that used to be just every day things is now overwhelming, and if I let things build up that I can't face doing or struggle to do, then that becomes even more overwhelming....and all of this just fuels the urge to eat.

I know I have to deal with this, I know that even a modest weight loss would mean that things would start to be less difficult/painful to do, and less overwhelming to contemplate doing, and therefore start to diminish the need to eat...I just need that initial chunk off to get me to that point. Most of the things I've allowed to slip, I've gradually stopped doing because of my weight increase. I know initially I regained some weight because of the stress of taking on too much workload-wise and the impact of hubby becoming a woman - both emotionally, esp because of our girls; and  then adjusting to living on my own with the girls, plus the financial impact - but I'm okay with most of that now, the original drivers for the eating have gone and been replaced with the ones relating to my resulting size.

And that makes me cry, cos it's just so hard to get the eating under control enough, to lose enough, so that it doesn't hurt to walk, and I'm not constantly full of aches and pains - that's all I want, if I could get there, then I could get myself back firmly into recovery, like I was last year.

 

 

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