This past week was consumed with how I would handle the holiday. Thankfully I was able to reschedule with Doug for Tuesday instead of our normal Thursday (Thanksgiving) appointment. It was a good session. I feel like we covered a lot of good stuff (more later). Also it was a good thing that I had group Wednesday night. We learned some skills to help us through the holiday.
I think I did alright on Thanksgiving. The morning of Thanksgiving I made a schedule of meals. Not that I had to eat at specific times just balancing out my meals/snacks for the day since dinner, the big meal, was at a strange time for me. I knew ahead of time that probably the hard part of the day would be after dinner when I was home alone. It's so hard to be alone during the holidays. I did well with the planning. I was combating Ed all day - he got a lot of "shut the hell up, Ed" and "leave me alone".
He got much of the same for Friday but perhaps in a more panicked louder tone. I was worried about Friday too because I was going to get some yummy leftovers from my mom and was nervous about having that good food in my house...tempting me to binge. I did pretty well again with the food in the house on Friday. I was able to take a small amount of each type of food for dinner and be satisfied. Yeah.
Then came yesterday. All day long it was almost as if I was planning the binge. I don't think I was actually planning it as much as I wasn't standing up to Ed and telling him to go to hell. In fact I didn't think about separating us at all yesterday. I don't know if it was because I'd tried so hard the two days prior to keep him at bay that I just didn't have it in me to keep fighting or what. What I assumed last night was that it wasn't Ed, it was me. I wanted it. I was lonely and I wanted to feel full. I felt crappy about myself within minutes of starting but I kept going anyway.
So today I am looking for compassion even though I don't really think I deserve it. Each day (since I've read Life Without Ed) I write in my journal "What does Ed want me to do today?" and "What do I need to do to stay in recovery?". Ed has all sorts of really great things to say to me today and of course he wants me to continue with my poor food behavior. Staying in recovery? I need to follow my meal plan and resist Ed.
Following the meal plan sounds easy enough but since Ed is telling me not to eat because I don't deserve too and if I fail at that than I should toss the meal plan and eat whatever and as much of whatever I want. He is such a pain in the ass - so contradictory. Right now, I'm following my meal plan which happens to be extremely difficult at the moment.
I think the part about staying in recovery really needs to include compassion for myself. I do not feel I deserve any at the moment. But if I look at the past couple days logically I think I might find some. I did well Thursday and Friday by using my skills and planning and trying to stay focused on my goal of not using symptoms. Last night, even though I ate too much for dinner (which I'm considering the binge) I didn't eat as much as would have in the past, I felt full faster I think than in the past and I was able to stop myself from eating more later in the evening. Perhaps I did as well as I could have.
There were other underlying emotions and events that happened throughout the last couple days that I'm sure are contributing to how I am feeling but this is already a longer post than I'd like it too be. For now I am looking for compassion and I'm afraid Ed is holding it prisoner.
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