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I Am In Need Of Some Guidance And A Kick In The Pants

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Very happy you are feeling relief!. It is a hard cycle to break being so hard on Our self. Did that for way too many years myself.
Had I been as open as you are..being so brave and open..I would have saved myself a lot of heartache.
I was so driven to get "good enough" that I missed seeing I was good enough all along.
Very proud of you and hugs accepted. Sending fresh ones back to you.
You are amazing at how open you are to allow others into your world!
 
Tomorrow I am going to start a new part of healing. I do not feel totally ready for it, but that just means it is a bit of a stretch and I need those.

I threw up this morning. I am becoming increasingly determined to become mentally, physically, as a unit, healthy. This does not include throwing up. I've reverted over the past two weeks. There has been an unusually high amount of stress and also excitement and overall material/stimuli to process, and my safe spot to talk about all of the above has been gone on vacation the past week. She is back tomorrow. I remember the decision to give in to the food issues (i.e. eating more sugar-rich foods and throwing up) happening. I remember thinking that I should choose not to engage, but I was unable to make that decision at the time. Well, it will come up again. And I will make the decision to choose health. It will not be an easy choice, because habits are difficult to break. But I will rewrite it, and I will have a healthy relationship with my body and I will have a healthy relationship with food. I am not letting this stay inside of me as an issue I feel ego-syntonic with. It is not healthy for me, it does not allow me to be the kind of person I want to be. That person is secure and joyful and compassionate and creative and at forefront, curious. Productive is a word I would use to synthesize all of these elements together. I want to contribute to the world in a productive manner. To me that means not mindless production (lots and lots), but deliberate construction of structures in places. This could mean teaching something I feel passionate about. This could mean listening. I value quality over quantity. I am choosing this.

I experimented with eating wheat today. I went gluten-free about 5 years ago. I grew about 2 inches and felt better. I thought I had celiac disease. I did have a mild positive wheat allergy IgE blood test, and the symptoms I get after eating wheat align more with an allergy than with celiac. But at the time I was lonely and part of a celiac disease forum and wanted to have a reason to continue being part of the community. Celiac was fulfilling a combination of needs I was not getting met in healthier places. Right now I am aware of the following ones: The need to be part of a community. The need to be learning all the time. The need to be creating and expressing. When I was younger I got sick often and going to the doctor I could have interesting conversations, feel taken care of and express what I was feeling to a certain degree. There was a part of me who wanted to have a reason to go to the doctor regularly -- to learn, and to be exposed to fresh perspectives. And often, the doctor helped me feel better. I didn't consistently feel this way about the doctor until I started having a rougher time after 5th grade.

I have memories that involve food from before I went gluten free. One such memory is of my mom bringing me to a local bread shop where they made a delicious cinnamon swirl bread. It was essentially monkey bread but wrapped like a cinnamon bun, loaf sized. They gave out full bread sized samples. I loved that bread. I have been wanting something like that for awhile. Today I stopped at a spot and picked up a cinnamon bun made with wheat flour. What has happened? Nothing horrible. I've been itchy. It isn't pleasant, and it is enough to detract me from eating it everyday but now I know that if I really want something with wheat in it, I can go ahead and have it. The other food memory I have is of stopping at a local grocery store when I was young and getting miniature blueberry fruit tarts. Both of those memories are uniquely special to me for some reason. Okay, the one other one is from when I would get sick. I craved ketchup and french fries and an oreo mcflurry from mcdonalds. My mom said she knew I was getting better when I would ask for those two things. It's not really about the food because it is not "enough" to replace them. Although the cinnamon bun was good. I don't know if deep down I realize this though. Food is just food. Yes, but as a human being I make associations which is a beautiful thing animals can do. We can create intricate webbings of inter-related material. It is important that I remember both that food is just food but also honor past memories I have of associations with food that may make the food stand more prominently outwards than it might've otherwise. I can still honor those past times. I can eat the wheat and feel itchy!

I feel better at a particular weight. That is perfectly fine. I feel better when I feed my body healthy foods, but also give into cravings sometimes. Lately I have been doing the latter and I am feeling less comfortable in my skin. I am finding a place that works for me, weight wise and balance of healthy foods / cravings.
I do better when I do not have to cook all of my meals. I do better when I can take time for myself to process in the way that works for me.

My goal is to become an individual. That means: I feel my feelings, not the feelings that I presume are normal to feel in a given situation. I listen to what I feel. I work through them and I give myself permission to do so. I behave in a way that allows me to feel less stress, which means not making eye contact while I am listening or speaking. I follow what lights me up. I ask questions. I respect and maintain awareness of the environment I am in. I fight for what I think. I ask for clarification when I am unsure of what someone said or was meaning to say. I give myself permission to process stimuli extremely slowly.

If I wake up early tomorrow morning, feeling quite hungry here is what I will try. I will stand firm on the timing of my breakfast. Doing so does not mean I am inflexible, doing so means that I do not give myself more time to obsessively ruminate about options. I need to create some structure. I need the structure so that I can start to change my thought patterns, so that I can have more room to think about things that are constructive. I will not always want to do this. But I am going to do it. I will make the time to meditate and breathe deeply. I will see if I can fall back to sleep. I will read or listen to a book or color or watch tv. If I cannot focus I will see whether it is because I am feeling anxiety. If I am feeling anxiety I will try to figure out why and if there is something I can do about it. I will keep working to build community.

I want to remember that winter's can be rough for building community. Spring is coming. I'll be able to be outside more and walk around more.

I also want to remember that I can have any of the foods that came up as reactive on the IgG blood test. If I am out and about and get quite hungry and want a sandwich, I can get a sub with full wheat bread. I can get a muffin. I can get sushi. Or pizza or a blueberry bagel. I can get something from the student union! It will be alright. When you can, try to avoid the higher reactive foods. And stop planning meals. Don't think about food so much. Make an effort to stop those thoughts. Make decisions and go with them. It is just food. We've got this. Do some check in's here. Habits are hard to break, but we will create new ones and revitalize old ones that work for you. Find other hobbies.
 
I realize that to work at the above, it will be helpful for me to firstly work on staying grounded. I think if I can be mindful about that, the other bits may start to integrate naturally. The bits that don't can receive further attention, but grounded is a healthy spot for me to work towards.
 
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