Feeding salt (and ice cream) into the open wounds.

This past week was the epitome of emotional awfulness. I hit rock-bottom, slammed upward from the momentum, only to come crashing back down onto the jagged rocks time and time again.

I had intended to sift through the muckity-muck, to clear out the skeletons in my closet, so that I could better understand the whys and hows of my life as it currently exists. I wanted to dive a bit deeper into issues that were arising as I wrote out my variety of emotions and questions, particularly those expressed here; I thought the experience would be, at most, a cathartic, soulful cleansing of sorts.

Instead of the joyful release that I expected to feel upon unleashing a decades worth of demons, I felt every heartbreak, every gut-stabbing moment of pain, every ounce of regret and guilt. Every moment of wrong was relived as I navigated myself through the maze of all the unhealthy relationships that I have witnessed and all the unhealthy relationships I've been a part of in my life.

One moment I'd be fine, the next I was sitting on the shower floor, water pouring down me, as I was choking out sobs and trying to wrap my mind around something I've been avoiding for so long. I'd be fine again, thinking I'm getting it all under control, then I'm in my car headed back to my apartment and a super-personal song comes on the radio that has me bawling and trying to wipe tears off my face as quickly as possible so I can see the road...

I was absolutely desperate to talk to someone about all the guilt, shame, bitterness, confusion, disgust, and just get RID of all the stuff that was being held like a fist full of bile in the back of my throat. I needed to get it out, to clean out my system, but there was no one. The things I needed to let out were so personal that I'd already reduced my potential "supporters" to people I really felt I could trust with such information. The person I most adamantly wanted to talk with was no where around and I don't have his phone number so I had no way of getting in contact with him... His sister was my next effort and she didn't respond to my text message.

My last potential vein of support was to talk with my best friend who I've not been able to talk with about anything personal in quite sometime because she's been so seemingly uninvolved and uninterested in anything that's not her husband or her child. It seemed kismet when she ended up calling me before I could call her, but then all she could talk about was how Steven Tyler was "such a sell-out" because he made a pop album and how he was her "idol" and now she has "no respect" for him because he's "not a 'rocker'" anymore and that a "part of [her] died" because of his being a sellout. She talked for 20 minutes about how this was such a huge disappointment, such a sad day, blah blah blah. Toward the end she picked up on my total lack of interest in the whole (completely stupid) conversation and mistook it for me being "tired."

Lost and alone, I thought I could get myself out of the demon-plagued mind-trap by writing it out here and, hopefully, get some sort of support that I'd been denied for too long last week. Well, wouldn't you know it, when I got online Blogger was down for maintenance and was in read-only mode or some such thing.

I had exhausted every possibility and had been left, as usually, entirely empty-handed. That's why I've always chosen food. That's why I "chose" food again. In the 48 hours my mom was back home in NW Ohio, I ate 6 "party pizzas," 5 large cinnamon rolls, two containers of Edy's ice cream (not the "double-churned" supposedly-healthier variety, either), finished off a container of Nutella, and ate a bunch of almonds for good measure.  I drowned myself in food and soda; in both the sweet and sugary and the salty and savory calories. I kept eating because at least when I was eating I could trick myself into thinking about the food and not the loneliness and the emptiness and the shame of it all. I had no one when I needed someone the most, NO ONE, but I had food.

Now, a few days later, the demons are lingering in a big way, the already stretchy-as-stretchy-can-be clothing are getting tighter, and I still haven't been able to talk to anyone so I just... keep eating. It doesn't seem like it should be this hard; I don't WANT it to be like this, but I'm so tired of facing nothing beyond loneliness and emptiness. Where do I turn when the only thing that's ever constant is food? I'm so mind-numbingly scared of what the future holds if this is the "prime of my life" and I'm this miserable and perpetually locked down by food because there's nobody around to throw me a helping hand to help me help myself pull away from it all.

What do I do? WHAT? I need help, I admit it, I'm ready for the next step, but I need help because I don't know what the next step is and I don't know how to face it alone -- I'm not even sure I can. I just need help.

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"One of these days I'm going to love me and feel the joy of sweet release; one of these days I'll rise above me and at last I'll find some peace. Then I'm going to smile a little, and maybe even laugh a little, but one of these days I'm going to love me."

[Tim McGraw; "One of These Days"]

My big, fat, disgusting secret.

The reason I've been wanting a healthy relationship with food is because it is one of the most basic relationships. If I can't be healthy with food--with myself--how can I have healthy relationships with men? Doesn't seem very likely, does it? Of course, there may already be too much (irreparable?) damage done as a result of my unhealthy relationship with food. More to the point, I think my struggle(s) with food have been too well-documented by my body and such documentation is hard to erase. Ever heard the expression "Once it's on the Internet, you can never get it back"? I think the same is true for our bodies, in a sense; we can't undo the damage that's already there--it's permanent. This worries me a great deal because I think it's one of the biggest mental hurdles I've got to overcome.

Perhaps I'm "beating around the bush" too much... I guess what I'm saying all boils down to this... there are two scenarios I'm faced with:

1. Lose weight. Begin living a healthy lifestyle with nutritional foods and plenty of activities. Have a ton of excess skin, skin flab, and stretch-mark scars.
2. Stay fat. Live as I've been living, probably continue to gain weight, exercise if/when the mood strikes, continue to use food as my crutch. Have a giant stomach overhang, flabby arms, double-chin, stretchmarks (old and new), and zero flexibility to boot.

Catch the recurrence? The skin flab and stretchmarks? No matter what, I've got 'em. I'm stuck with a permanent reminder of my unhealthy weakness. I can almost, kind of, sort of, in a way, nearly deal with that, but what guy can?

My relationship with the opposite sex is screwy, at best, and I don't think "stretchmarks" will help it any. My relationship with guys can be broken up into two categories as well:

1. The very select guys who enjoy talking with me, getting to know me, and "get me" -- to some extent. These guys have zero interest in a relationship with me that stems beyond (pseudo-) friendship and they definitely have NO sexual interest in me.
2. The guys who --drunk, or possibly not-- would sleep with me. These guys want no part of a serious relationship with me, they do not want to get to know me (or have and don't like me over-much), and they really just want sex--with anyone--and they would be willing to "settle" for me: the closest available hole to drill.

Yeah. I'm obviously still a virgin because a) there aren't that many guys in groups 1 and 2. b) my standards are a tad high.

Everyone gives me flack for being an inexperienced 23-year-old virgin--especially because I'm such a horny one, LOL--but the truth is I would totally have sex with someone today if he were a good combination of 1 and 2. Someone who likes me, wants to get to know me, wants to have sex with me, and (crazily) thinks I'm attractive. ...but who is EVER going to find me attractive, particularly in the nude? It's here I refer back to "stretchmarks" and "flab." Mmm... oh, yeah, baby... so. damn. sexy.

Yep, I can already see my dream man holding his mouth shut and running to the bathroom. Score.

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Basically, to sum up, me in the nude is NOT a pretty picture -- regardless of my weight at time of said-nudity. The big "What if?" for me, because ultimately I DO want to lose the weight, is what if I lose all the weight to find out I'm still unattractive/unsexy and there's STILL no one who wants to be in a relationship with me? What if it's NOT the weight that has scared guys off -- what if it's just ME? Then what will I say? What will I use to "comfort" myself? I won't be able to say, "Well, I'm alone because I'm fat and people (GUYS) are just afraid to give me a chance, afraid to get to know the real me!" ...what then?

That would, I think, be the worst kind of revelation, the worst kind of rejection. How will I recover from that? 3000 to 1, I'd start eating myself sick to ease the loneliness, the hurt, the confusion. Eat my way back to the "me" I've grown so accustomed to sharing a disgusting body with for the past decade. I want so badly for it to not be like that...

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This post, this whole blog, was inspired by a PostSecret I found while stumbling around on the web one day. I sat at my computer and, upon seeing the "secret," felt like someone had shot my right between the eyes (or, to be more accurate, the middle of my heart). It is as much my horrible secret as it is the secret of the submitter, but I don't want it to be my secret anymore.

 

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"My hearts at a low, I'm so much to manage; I think you should know that I've been damaged."

[TLC; "Damaged"]

There's an app(etizer) for that!

My name is Alana and I'm an emotional eater, I'm a social eater, I'm a situational eater, and I eat for pleasure. I eat when I'm angry, when I'm sad, when I'm alone, when I'm lonely, and when I just need to sink my teeth into something delicious. Sure, I do eat when I'm hungry, like most everyone does, but unlike everyone else I rarely stop there and that's why it has become a problem.

I say this not only to parallel other addictions that people quite readily recognize, but also because I had a bad slip up last weekend that was nothing if not an emotional outlet through the use of food. I realize it's probably not that big of a deal (who didn't eat a bit too much last weekend?), but I was mind-reeling over so many other things and it felt like such a huge slight that no one in my family had told me they were having an Easter get-together (my dad didn't even call to wish me a "Happy Easter"). Thus it became another moment when food was there for me when I couldn't call anyone or talk to anyone.

For every kind of situation, whether happiness or hurt or frustration, I have a food that helps keep me company somehow and that's fairly constant. I think the only thing I crave more than food is a constant good, healthy relationship. Food is what seems to help me more than people because it's always there -- I don't have to hope and pray that it won't be too busy for me, too rushed, not paying attention, not listening, not caring. I don't have to stare at my phone for 25 minutes, scrolling through my list of contacts, wondering who would actually answer and care to hear about my ridiculous mental meltdown(s), only to come down to ... no one.

When I choose to eat, there's always something for me to commiserate with, to cry into, to snarl at, or even to celebrate the silly little things that no one else cares about celebrating. And, let's face it, there's a reason it's called "comfort food." When I reach the bottom of the bucket, the bag, the pan, I can always make more or find something to fill the "new" void; however, if I call someone and they can't talk or don't answer, there's not a bottomless list of possibilities. Food doesn't reject me, if anything I'm the one who gets to reject food.

That's how I assert control in my uncontrollable life and... it's totally wrong. I know that, but just because I KNOW that doesn't mean I can snap my fingers and tell myself to let go of the one thing I feel like I get a say in these days. If I do that, what then? To suddenly stop letting food be the comfort, the crutch, the one I call, I have to have something else to funnel myself onto because I know I am not in a position (mentally/physically/geographically) to just let it all go. In saying that, I do realize that I'm no longer in control of what I eat -- it's in control of me -- but I've known that this whole time I've been writing here or otherwise I wouldn't be writing here.

It's here I am starting to understand that I am scared out of my mind because food is the only thing that I let fill the emptiness inside me and it's coming nowhere close to doing what I'd thought it would and that's why I keep eating and eating and eating. Even though it doesn't "fill the emptiness" in all the ways I wish it would, it comes closer than anything (read: anyone) else. This is my fault, I know, because I'm too afraid to let anyone in right now. I feel like I should be "full" and whole and complete on my own before I ask someone to be a part of my life, otherwise I'll be trading my fixation with food for what could only ever be a short-term (unhealthy, obsessive, needy/clingy, messed up) "relationship" that would undoubtedly leave me emptier than before...

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Right now, on the verge of major tears, I feel so hollow in the worst of ways. I want to eat to take my mind off it, but I also just want to cry and curl away into some other place and time.

I need an overly-long hug from a calories-not-included friend and a solid shoulder to cry on.

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"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that he didn't trust me so much."

[Mother Teresa]