I won a battle today.
I needed to pick up my prescription for some medication and didn't have any cash on me. My roommate gave me some money out of the mutual household fund, with no real expectation of me giving him back the change. As soon as the money was in my hand, I realized I would have about four dollars left over once I paid for my medication.
Cool! You can go by McDonald's and get a coffee and something to eat.
This was the first thought that popped into my head after I realized I would have money left over. It wasn't JUST a thought though. My body flooded with excitement, my tastebuds went into overdrive, and I was happy.
Except, part of me wasn't.
A while back, I wrote a post about my pattern of Secret Eating. This thing I do where I will go buy food from some place and sit in my car and eat it while no one else is around. It's a stress release for me. It calms me down. It helps me feel in control of part of my life. It also makes me feel very, very good . . . in the moment.
Of course, Secret Eating is completely counter productive to what I'm trying to accomplish with my life. I do not need the calories. I do not have the extra money. I do not need the cycle of amped blood sugar and increased blood pressure. Aside from just the physical consequences, Secret Eating is also bad for me because it is a quick fix and endorphin high that masks and distracts me from finding other solutions to my problems.
So I tell myself that I will NOT be going to McDonald's. I don't need anything from there. I've already eaten breakfast. I have goals and plans and I need to stick to them.
Yes, yes. But it's ONE MEAL. ONE. That is all this is. You can do one meal.
The problem is, it's never just ONE meal. Secret Eating is a pattern of behavior. It's a drug of choice. It's something, left unchallenged, that I will go back to again and again and again. I always find justification for it. I'm stressed . . . but of course, I'm always stressed. I'm feeling down . . . I'm usually feeling down. I just need it. I just need the escape. Hmph. We always need the escape.
So I tell myself that it's not going to happen. I remind myself of the low points. I think about the times I was scraping change off the floor so I could pay for whatever Secret Eating I was doing. I remind myself about the times when I used up all my money for Secret Eating and couldn't afford my meds. I think about all the money wasted over the years, all the pounds gained, just so I could feed this addiction. I think about how trapped I am, how hard it is to deal with basic things like walking and finding clothes. 'Just One More Meal' is not worth all of that.
I go to the pharmacy and get my meds. As I am being handed the change, my brain begins to perk again.
Okay. No McDonald's. What about donuts? Donuts are small and sweet and you deserve sweet things and it will make you happy. It's making you happy right now, just thinking about it. Do it.
It was making me happy. Well, it was making part of me happy. The other part of me was keeping my hands firmly on the steering wheel as I drove to therapy. I kept thinking about how REALLY happy I would be once I got there and I had resisted this monster. I thought about how bad I would feel after I ate the donuts once the rush of the Secret Eating was gone. I thought about how my little momentary sense of control would abandon me, leaving me just feeling like I wasn't able to handle anything in my life.
Why are you doing this? It's bullshit. Eat the donut. It's ONE donut. Okay, maybe two. Three. Maybe we can afford four if we use the change that is always in the van.
I drove past the donut place and to my therapy building. I sat in the car and wanted to cry. Not because I didn't get the donuts, but because I have to deal with this war. That I let myself get to this point where an addiction was robbing me of so much, controlling so much, and ruining so much. And in that moment, when I felt the worst about the situation even existing in the first place, I wanted to just give up all this 'change your health' stuff I'm doing. It had gotten too far out of control, gone on for way too long, and robbed me of too much for me to stop now. There was a possibility I would never really have anything to replace it.
See, the thing is . . . any time I have the free cash, I'm going to go through this struggle. I'm going to be tempted to give in to the Secret Eating. I would love to tell you I won't ever give in again . . . but I will. People always do. I just have to remember that WHEN I do, I can't let that derail everything I've done to change things. I'll have to be strong enough to walk forward again, no matter how many steps back I just took.
Then again, I find that I'm starting to have more days like this one, days where I actually DO when the battle. The Secret Eating doesn't happen, I come home with dollars in my purse, and I can feel accomplished and strong. It's kind of scary that I'm getting to where I can resist. This is new territory for me.
It's kind of nice though. Then again, maybe that's just me enjoying the fact that I get to spite that other side of myself.
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