AliKitten's Journal

Ok, so I had a little binge last night.  I felt it coming on for days - every day I had the urge, and I think I know why it finally happened.   I felt like I was getting too "relaxed" with my eating, and - even though I wasn't gaining weight - this made me really anxious.  (I know that relaxed eating is a goal of "recovery", but I don't like how it feels.  I hate it.  It doesn't feel like me and it stresses me out.)  I miss restricting - the feeling of "control" that it gave me,  the fact that restricting gave me something to think about, to plan for and to strive for.  It's like I have this part of me that never feels good enough, always feel like I need to be improving myself or working towards something, and trying to get smaller is the only thing I can think of working on.  Then when I do get smaller, it feels like such an achievement and makes me so happy.  I miss that.

Why do I feel this way, like I always need to be improving and always need to be smaller?  Why can't I like myself the way I am, which is underweight, btw.  I have no clue, but I'm thinking about it.  I have "OCD tendencies" btw (not officially diagnosed, but I do some OCD things) and anxiety, so it's probably all related.   

So why did I binge if I want to control my world by getting smaller?  Well, I know that I can't afford to lose any more wt. and have accepted that I need to maintain, which I have done since mid-June.  I actually want to maintain; when I see the # on the scale or myself in the mirror, I know I don't want to get skinnier.  But it feels bad to be stuck at a fixed size, to not have "get smaller" as a goal to strive for anymore.  It feels bad to try on a pair of jeans at the store, have them be tight, and not be able to buy them thinking that I'll lose weight and they'll fit.  And then when that happened, how great I'd feel.  I've done this almost my whole life.  So .... if I binged, then I could get away with restricting for a few days to make up for it, still maintain my wt.  but have all the "rewards" of restricting.  I know this is NOT GOOD, but that's how I feel and why I binged. 

So this morning I don't really feel fat and disgusted with myself - I feel excited that I can restrict today.  How sad is that??   We're going to a party tonight after dinner (a potluck) and it actually feels comforting to know that I can just go and not eat rather than trying to have to figure out how to eat a "normal amount" like a normal person.   

This is really bad and is blocking my recovery, and I'm going to talk to my doc about it on Wed.  Hopefully he can help me.