Oh my goodness. I’m out. I am finally out……..
It seems surreal. Hard to believe. Almost impossible. Could it be true? My God. I’m out.
I’m living in freedom.
My chains are broken!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀
Chains of surfeit.
Excess. Overeating. Binging. Comfort eating. Stuffing down my emotions, my anxieties, my fears, worries, feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, regret, low self-esteem, failure.
Overeating to numb myself. To comfort myself. To hide myself. To hide and remain hidden underneath the weight of what I ate. The extra weight. The excess.
Yes, I’ve always eaten a little too much. To cope. To deal. Too much food, the wrong kinds of food, junk. Sugar. There’s a great book called “Food: the Good Girl’s Drug” by Sunny Sea Gold. It’s about having an actual addiction to food. Check it out using the link below:
I’ve done this for years. For way too freakin’ long. First time I remember binging out was probably Halloween candy when I was like 6 or 7. Well actually, I ate some cookies when I was 4 when my mom was outside… I remember doing it to spite her. And of course, because cookies. 🙂
But those days are behind me. So I’m going to write a note to food real quick:
Dear Food,
You are so good. What you do for the human body is amazing. You keep me going. You give me energy and strength when I indulge the proper amount. But I have abused you. I have abused you for most of my life. I have taken advantage of you. I have hidden behind you. I have masked myself in you. I have hated you. I have tried to shun you. I have avoided you. I have come crying back to you countless times. And you’re always there. I can’t avoid or escape you. So instead, I have learned how to love you and how to treat you.
Thank you for always being there. Thank you for not disappearing. Thank you for all of the comfort you can’t help but give.
I used to hate you and what you did to me. I thought of so many ways to avoid you. Vegetarian, vegan, sugar free, carb free, atkins, athleticism, “not hungry”, “already ate a big meal”, binge & restrict. Not eat at all. Eat and throw it all up. What a broken relationship I had with you. How flawed. How devastating. How stressful.
And to think that now… I love you… and know I am beyond blessed to have you. To have a healthy relationship with you is something I never dreamed possible. But here we are. I look forward to seeing you and enjoying you multiple times a day. I think of reasons to go out with you with friends and enjoy life and eating together.
Food, our relationship has been on a downward spiral, emotional roller coaster, and has always included a large elephant blocking us from properly understanding each other. But it’s gone. The elephant is gone and I can see you properly.
I need you. I want you. I’m thankful for you.
…But I’m not going to come over in the middle of the night anymore. I’m not going to hide you from my loved ones; my family and friends. I’m not going to be ashamed of you. I’m not going to blame you anymore. I don’t feel ashamed for being with you. In fact, I brag about you.
I don’t know where we’re going to go from here, but I know it’s a beautiful direction. I know you never meant to have me in chains, but I have been in them. You never meant to bind me or drug me or cloud my vision. I have taken it upon myself all of these years so I didn’t have to think. So I didn’t have to move. So I didn’t have to feel.
Now that I’m free and have all of this energy I can finally live. I wasn’t living to the full in chains. Who could? I’m no longer a slave to you; in my body or in my mind. I’m going to tell the world now. About our story. About healing. About the place I’ve come from and the place I’m at. With you, in general.
And there’s so much life to live! I know you won’t be running through my mind all the time like you used to. But I think you’ll understand. I won’t need to count calories anymore. I won’t need to go to work out to compensate for indulging in too much of you anymore. I won’t spend too much time indulging or any time at all feeling sorry about it. About the consequences or the guilt. All of those things no longer haunt me because I’m free.
It feels weird to be free. Maybe like how inmates feel after getting released from prison after being in there their whole lives. I’m learning how to act and be and live for maybe the first time. True living. True, unchained, life-giving, grateful, healthy, God-centered living.
So food, thank you. I’m so glad to have you in my life. I thank God for you. Oh, how I thank God.
Love & xxx
<3 V