It's Not About Food

My apologies for not writing in a few days, my laptop has been down (for a new computer, I have had more problems with it than I think it' s worth).


So I met with my counsellor on Wednesday, and it was a ground breaking session for me. All along she's been telling me that it's not about the food, and I was hearing her words, but not really understanding them or relating to them. After I spilled my last two weeks, all the ups and the downs, she asked me once again, "Why are you doing this? What are you using food to medicate?", and suggested a few reasons, and hit the nail on the head when she said loneliness. Several times in passing, it had come up every now and then that I had a longing for female companionship - I have an amazing boyfriend who puts up with more shit from me than I would ever put up with from him, I have a great relationship with my parents, and two pretty close friends, one of whom knows about this, the other of whom has a lot of her own problems to deal with, but this is really where any social life ends for me.

Over the last year, I have gone through the process of "divorcing" my high school girlfriends, as we had really just grown apart and realized we weren't 17 any more and didn't have much in common. That had been hard on me, but since that time I have found myself feeling lonely, without some girls in my life to act silly with, go shopping, dancing, do regular girly things with. And it's nothing I had given much thought to in terms of "eating", but when my counsellor asked if I was feeling lonely in my life, I lost it. I mean, we are talking crocodile tears, I felt so inconsolable, sad, embarrassed and lonely.


When I go to these sessions with her, I always get really sad talking about my food problems, but I have never reacted so strongly in my sessions with her as I had when this came up. And the more I thought about it, a lot of times I gave into the binge over the last few months had been times I had felt lonely or rejected by people in my life.

A big one that comes to mind was over the Christmas holidays when I had plans to hang out with my brother for the evening (whom I don't see much since he is away at university through the year), and he broke these plans last minute to hang out with friends he hadn't seen in like a year or so. I had been annoyed at the time and was mad at him, and he didn't seem to care. How did I end up spending the night? Eating, and eating big (Christmas break, lots of food in the house at this time of year). I remember at the time just feeling so disposable, like my feelings didn't matter to him, I was so sad.

Then I can think back to a few weeks ago when some friends cancelled plans for a girls night out on the town, and how did I spend that night? Eating. How did I deal when I was stood up to go out with colleagues a few weeks back? I ate to feel better. Upon reflection, eating is how I feel better about myself. So maybe when people break plans, it is innocent to them, maybe they have busy social lives and cancelling plans with me is so minuscule in their lives, but I do feel hurt when this happens. But why does it happen? This is what I want to know. I feel I am a kind person, I would never talk about someone behind their back, I can be shy at times, I don't understand why I am so disposable to people around me. There has to be something about me... and I said that to my counsellor and she said something to the effect like we attract what we put out to the world, so if I view myself as disposable or not worthy of other people, than others will view me the same way. I wonder if that is true, or maybe there is something wrong with me.

It is definitely some food for thought (no pun intended), but I feel through this last meeting, more than ever, it is not about the food for me. And I feel that since this last meeting with her on Wednesday, I am better equipped to fight him when he comes for me, and yesterday he came (see new post).

*N