For the last several months I have been able (without even realizing it) to mute that voice in my head responsible for counting every single calorie I consume throughout the day. For years I calculated everything. Of course I still know the calorie content of basically every food on the planet, but somehow, without even realizing it, I have been able to silence the voice that obsesses over it. Until today.
Maybe it is something about being at home again. I lived here (not in this exact house, but in this exact neighborhood) when my eating disorder first began, when it picked up speed, when it ballooned out of control and I could no longer determine which part of my brain was fact and which was fiction, which voice was good and which voice was bad. I haven't lived here for the last two years, but each time I'm back, these same old feelings and impulses arise.
It hurts me to consider this, but I think my eating disorder issues must be directly linked to this place, which more than likely means linked to my family. When I am here I only think of one thing-- the absence of my father. My ED surfaced about a year after he passed away. There's just too much sadness here. There's so much overwhelming grief and regret and wishing for what was. It's too much. It makes me anxious. Being anxious triggers bad behavior.
For the first time in a long time I just drank a glass of soy milk and estimated without even trying to that it had about 115 calories. I didn't have to think about it. It's like the "check engine" light coming on in your car when something is wrong. It just pops up. It's like food isn't food if I'm not attaching calories to it. Tonight food feels like food. Once I start worrying over calories then eating becomes a task. Once eating becomes a task, it is too tempting to allow eating to become frightening, stressful, and before long, impossible.
I'm not sure what to do with all this.
I liked it better when food was not food.
I have to get a grip on this.
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