I want to binge, trying hard not to *Might Be Triggering*

rincoglionita

I've had a really emotional day. A good friend, one of my best friends, pretty much wants to "break up" with me because of some perceived wrong. I have examined and re-examined my role in this incident, and I do not see that I have done anything wrong and, in fact, I think she is being a sh!tty friend by creating melodrama where there is none and is trying to lay blame on me instead of where it belongs.

Nevertheless, I feel blindsided and incredibly hurt, and I know where I usually go for comfort for these terrible feelings. I keep trying to tell myself that that is only a temporary fix and that the terrible physical and emotional feelings afterward will overpower whatever soothing I may get from the binge. I have reached out to a few long-distance friends for support, and that helped some. But I still feel awful, and I still want to comfort myself with food. I thought I'd try writing it out here, to see if it helps. So far, not so much, LOL, but it's worth a shot, right?

Today is my one-month-aversary on MFP, and I've been binge-free for the entire time. It has felt so good to be in control of my food intake again, to not feel at the mercy of food and bingeing. I've felt confident and powerful again, and I have loved that feeling. This thing with my friend, which started yesterday but hit a completely unexpected peak today, has really taken the wind out of my sails, and it is testing my mettle in a way I did not see coming. I'm too new at MFP-ing and everything else to feel solid in my resistance to this. It's not one day at a time right now--it's one second at a time. I hate this feeling, all these feelings.

My therapist has told me: they're just feelings, they won't kill me. I will sit with this thought and these feelings for a few minutes for a little while and see how I do. This sucks.

Thanks for reading.

LexaKellington123

wow..this is scary. reading this. I had a similar situation happen. I am more angry and profoundly annoyed. Over a year and I have denied that this person has been extremely selfish and manipulative. She claims to be an amazing, compassionate, and dedicated friend...when she's the exact opposite. Just remember that if this person is a true friend and real friend, there will be an eventual reconciliation of some kind. You two will find a way to get over the drama. I think you are being really strong for writing this out here for everyone to see. You are in a good spot. You are sitting here typing about a STRONG URGE to binge...but you haven't carried out this desire or strong urge. You are sitting there thinking about it and feeling pain, anxiety, and distress and THINKING about all the amazing foods you could stuff down your throat and numb yourself 100%, but you are also thinking about the results and effects of that choice. I know many people, including, myself who suffer from BED (or whatever....ED) and would have already reached for the food! You are strong...you have proven it and now it's time to prove it to yourself; your inner-self. You have been binge-free for 1 month and you need to continue that progress. Don't feed in to the voices in your head telling you to eat. They are wrong....you feed your body when it needs nutrition, not when you want to numb yourself. KEEP UP THE PROGRESS. Do not regress!! I believe in you. : 0 I hope things eventually work out with your friend.

rincoglionita

Thanks so much for your reply, Lexa. I really appreciate you reaching out.

It's about an hour later, and I think the worst of the urge has passed, at least for now. I had to sit with the awful feelings for a while, and, no, they didn't kill me, though they mightily sucked. There's just been a lot of upheaval in my life in the last year or so, and losing a good friend on top of all the rest of it just seems like the poop icing on the crap cake. Well, that image helps take away some of the binge urge, too....

I didn't expect to find fighting this urge to binge so exhausting. Damn. I feel absolutely wiped out. I think I'll have a glass of milk and go to bed, even though it's only 9:30. I'm low on protein for the day, and oddly enough I've definitely got the calories for it today, more than 400 left. After I got my friend's email, I couldn't eat for hours and hours until I realized that I was famished. After dinner was when it all hit me--the aftermath of the extreme hunger and the realization of just how horrible I felt..

Glad to have this place to express myself and find support. Thanks again for reading.

LexaKellington123

crazy how emotions can affect our eating, tirggers, and cravings for food. but yeah...i am so glad you are choosing to have a glass of milk and going to bed, rather than saying f-it...and surrendering to the ED voices in your head. they are ubiquitous and are constantly present in my mind every day. this struggle is hard, but small successes and achievements should be celebrated. I like your plan to go to bed. sleep is so healthy. remember if you don't get 7-9 hours per night, your metabolism slows down by up to 10% the next day. Tomorrow is a new day! The next mornings feel SO SO good when you did not give in to binges.

SelfHelpJunky

Wow, I wish I had read this yesterday. I am going through something similar. A couple of good friends of my fiance and I are friends with another couple that we sometimes see at gatherings. For some reason, this couple decided that they don't like us. Every attempt at conversation over the past few years has resulted in getting blown off, and we are never invited to events at their place even though we live really close. My fiance wrote a text to them about it after they snubbed us again, asking if we had done anything to make them not like us. No response. We ran into them at our friend's daughters 1st bday party yesterday, and we saw that they were whispering in this other person's ear and looking in my fiance and I's direction. It got uncomfortable so we left as soon as presents were open.

I have not felt the urge to binge that strongly in a LONG TIME. It definitely came back with a vengeance yesterday, just when I was on a good streak. It was not as bad as it could have been, but definitely ugly. And I feel like total crap today. As sad as it is, I think I may need to start avoiding places where these people will be. We've attempted to make peace with them several times to no avail. My free time is limited, and I'd rather spend it with positive people that actually want us around.

Rinco, I am very glad to hear you were able to relax and go to bed. What a horrible situation. Sometimes friend "break-ups" can be harder than romantic ones. Hopefully you two patch things up; and if not, hopefully parting ways will be for the better.

rincoglionita

Thanks for your input, too, SHJ. I'm sorry you and your fiance are experiencing similar rejection. It's so painful.

I ended up not being able to get to sleep for quite a while last night and then woke up earlier than I wanted to this morning, so no healing rest for me last night. I think it might end up being a nap day for me today.

A night's sleep did help me gain some perspective, though, both on the situation with my friend and on the binge battle last night. First, as wrenchingly difficult as it was to fight the binge and not give in to it, it was worth it. I almost added "of course," but I didn't because I didn't know if it would be worth it. I had to go on faith that not bingeing would eventually feel better in the long run than bingeing would. It was a strategy of faith because I hadn't been down that road before. When I had felt those overwhelming feelings of hurt and loneliness and confusion and powerlessness in the past, I had turned to food for its *confirmed* ability to make me feel better in the short term. I did, of course, know about all the crap feelings that come after a binge--the utter shame, self-loathing, hopelessness, weakness, futility, etc.

So in order to fight the urge to binge, I had to accept on faith that the feelings of confidence and contentedness and self-control that I've developed over the last month were better than the temporary soothing I'd feel from bingeing. It also meant that I had to feel the sh!tty feelings I was feeling, which is exactly what I have trained myself to *prevent* through over 35 years of bingeing. There was so much YUCK in that process, I'm not going to lie. It was physically and emotionally draining, and there was no rainbow moment of peace at the end or even today. However, I absolutely *DO* feel better today for having not binged than I know I would have had I given in to the urge to binge. One episode of winning a hard-fought battle with bingeing feels much better, deep down, than the short-lived comfort I would have gotten from bingeing last night. So that "acting on faith" paid off, as I so desperately hoped it would. It was worth it to fight it, and I will remember this, and probably come back to re-read this thread, the next time I have to fight the battle. Because there *will* be a next time, of that I am sure.

As for my friend, well, someone who is so ready to throw me under the bus and think the worst of me when that is not who I have been throughout our friendship is not really a friend, is she? She's going through her own *kitten*, and she's projecting it on me, and today I can say that I don't need that in my life. I'm sad to lose the friendship we had, but I can't be sad to lose somebody who thinks so little of me for no cause. Today marks one month since my divorce was final, something I initiated but was sad to have to do--nobody gets married thinking they'll end up divorced, and when your partner lets you down over and over and over again, year after year after year, and you've done everything you can think of to fix things and help him year after year after year, you finally have to say "enough." So losing a very good friend so soon after losing my marriage compounds the sadness, but I'm strong (even when I think I'm not) and I'm brave (even when I think I'm not), and I can do this (even when I think I can't).

Thanks for reading.

MadDogManor

Wow - sounds like there are many changes you're going thru now, too! That in itself can be overwhelming. I'm not so much into change at all, which is why I'm finding this change of eating pattern very, very difficult right now.

I know how you're feeling about losing a friend - the same sort of thing happened to me a while ago. My BFF from high school 20-something years ago recently became a conservative Catholic after not having much religion at all while growing up. I don't mind or much care one bit what anybody's religion, creed, etc is at all, but I think since I'm not Catholic, she felt like she shouldn't associate with me as much. Maybe she was just too busy with the new church and people there. I don't know what happened, but the emails, trips, phone calls, get-togethers, and everything just stopped from her. We still send Christmas cards, but that's about it. It's sad, because we had so much history, growing up together and doing lots of things together for many years.

I find myself saying, one minute at a time, too! If I don't binge this minute, maybe I can go another minute. In fact, I pretty much say that every minute of every day now! I also find I'm starting to obsess about food, where before I didn't pay any attention at all and just shoveled whatever whenever into my mouth. BUT, MFP is really helping me try to stay true. We CAN do this. Hang in there.

rincoglionita

You are absolutely right that we can do this. It is really hard, and it is not going to be a linear thing. In fact, there really isn't any "end" to it, is there? We just do the very best we can and learn from the whole process.