Life as of 4th February 2014

So obviously I only post when something is going wrong. 

I'm at a point where a deliberate attempt at 'healthy eating' feels like a diet, and bingeing feels like failure. There doesn't seem to be an in-between: either I am successful or I am a failure.

Now, we have been talking a lot about how perfectionism is entirely unhelpful. Logically, I know this. In terms of behaviour, I find it an incredibly difficult idea to implement. This is why I'm here, right? To work through the difficult bits and not give up. But I have been giving up and bingeing every time I perceive that I haven't done something (be it diet or anything else) correctly. Extreme frustration.

So, what can I do? There are really only four imperatives: try harder, reconsider, realise, recognise. Who cares if realise and recognise are near-synonyms? This is not an exercise in eloquence.

1. Try harder to recognise and reframe perfectionist thoughts, writing them down when they occur if possible (even if at work).
2. Try harder to recognise the connection between bingeing and a perceived failure, and delay the binge if not avoid it completely.
3. Reconsider whether I am still (still!!!!! after all this time!!!) holding on to a diet mentality.
4. Recognise that I have not failed at recovery, because there is no such goddamn thing. It is about the process, not the outcome. Life is about the process, not the outcome.
5. Recognise that I still associate healthy eating with becoming an entirely different, better, more organised and successful person.
6. Recognise that I am a sensitive person ('highly sensitive person' if you will) and that my emotions and perceptions do swing around wildly. As a result I do have to take deliberate care in both managing those emotions (not abolishing them) and making myself less susceptible to bingeing.
7. Practise self-care. Practise self-care. Practise self-care. Bingeing is not a valid form of self-care. Flowers and water and a tidy room is self-care.
8. Realise that I tend to view myself as a passive victim of circumstance. I can actively choose to make my life better. I am not in control in the sense that I can do everything perfectly, but I am an agent in my own life, and I can do things to the best of my own ability.
9. Stop the comparisons and competitiveness with other people. It just makes me unhappy.
10. Realise that I can change and I can overcome this horrible disease. I just need to be more vigilant about recovery - as much as I hate the idea and want to get on with living, I need to put recovery at the forefront of my energies and efforts, just like I put my studies and my work and my family at the forefront of my energies.
11. Realise that I am still on the fence about the weight, and that this is maybe causing some of my unhappiness - that desire to still lose weight. Recognise that I want to avoid bingeing so that I can lose weight. Recognise that this is maybe impossible until I accept myself as whole and a sentient being who has an entire soul and personality apart from food and weight. Recognise that this is a recovery in the sense that I want to make myself whole again and recover who I am, a recovery in the intangible sense. The tangible and physical have little bearing on this.
12. Recognise that there is a big element of shame as well around even having this problem, around how I visibly eat a lot more (and more unhealthily) than other people around me, and around how people must look at me and judge me. Realise that this is probably bullshit and I doubt anyone but me cares.
13. Breathe and stay in the present. That's a gentler kind of imperative. You are a soul, think of yourself in terms of your soul instead of just your body.

 Love Nina.