Food issues, I have them…

I don’t talk much about my relationship with food. It’s personal, extremely private and it is riddled with so many dysfunctional aspects to it I could fill a few encyclopedia size books with how my life interacts with the food I consume.

I recently started reading Geneen Roth’s “Women Food and GOD” and while I can’t claim it’s been absolutely life saving, it has done some pretty amazing things in opening up my mind (and heart) examining how my relationship with food is an exact replica of the way I look at life.

I want to do a full review of this book but I’ve found that I’m only able to take in a couple of pages at a time. I will read something and then need a few days to digest a particular paragraph/idea. I originally got the book from the library and about 1/2 way through had to purchase it so that I could start to dog ear / mark / high light things that were true for me (read: the entire book). I’ve restarted to book so that I could go at a slower pace instead of worrying about being charged the daily late fee of $.10 from my local library because I’m pretty sure I never would have gotten the book back in time.

Bottom line: I have some serious issues.

I’ve known this since I could remember thinking “the way I eat isn’t normal”. I’ve known this since I started using Bulimia as a way of feeling in control of my food. I’ve known this for most of my life. The difference is that while I know I have some serious issues I am also willing to take these issues apart and rebuild them into something more functioning, more healthy and more life sustaining. My weight loss journey would only be successful for the short term if I was willing to spend a few hours in the gym each day and live by a calorie in = calorie out kind of mentality but I’m not in this for the short term.

I’m in this for a life time.

So why am I blathering on about all of this? You’re probably asking yourself “where’s the examination?” “when is she going to let us in on the secrets?” Truth is I’m beating around the bush. I sat down to blog about some of the reasons why I panic over my food and how that in turns plays out in how I panic about my life but I’m so full of angst at the moment that I’m not even sure I could begin to blog about it.

In fact I know I can’t.

But here is what I can tell you. I do panic over my food. I panic there won’t be enough. I panic that I will wake up some day and I won’t have access to any food. I panic that someone is going to eat my food and leave me with nothing. I panic that I won’t eat enough and when I go back for more it will be gone. I’ve been this way as long as I can remember. Truth be told; it’s the only way I remember thinking about food. Did it start because I had three older brothers that ate much more than me and learned at an early age to grab and eat what I could before they ate it all? Did it start because as a child I resorted to stealing money in order to buy food because I wasn’t sure if my mom would come home at night? Did it start because every relationship I had as a child was neither consistent nor healthy and it manifested in how I looked at my food (neither consistent and far from healthy)? Are there a million other factors to the panic?

Yes.

Panic over food = panic over life.

My life is in a constant state of panic. There won’t be enough work. There won’t be enough money. I have to check my banking account multiple times a day to make sure there is still money in there. I can never be good enough. I can never do enough. I can never make anyone happy enough. I can’t sit for long periods of time without feeling like I’m failing at something (relaxation does not come without a lot of conscious effort). I usually do more in the first hour I’m awake than most people do in an entire day but when I lay my head on the pillow at night, it’s never enough.

So that’s where I am with this book. Not too far into it and needing to start over to digest it a little more. Reading it a little slower and a little more open minded. I think once I’m done blogging a little more about it I’m going to do an official giveaway of the book.

I promise to let you in on the little secrets.

Just as soon as I let myself in on them.

Oh and I’ll tell you the story about cans of pie filling.

Yes I said pie filling.