situation difused

Thank you so much for your support, it’s so valuable to me to know there are people who care and might even understand.

I find myself back on the wagon but with the loosest of grips on the reigns. My head keeps flitting between new and old thinking. I'm skating on such thin ice it scares me. I just walked out of work and straight into a cafe, I bought a large icing covered cake and ate it hurriedly, I then went to the ATM withdrew $60 and started to strategise just how this binge was going to run.

In the lift down just 2 minutes beforehand a binge didn’t feature anywhere on my agenda, I have no idea how I got from control to chaos in the blink of an unconscious eye.

I can't use enough cliches to illustrate just how much of a tightrope I'm walking. At lunch I looked at all the cafe’s cakes while I waited for my toastie to toast and I thought to myself how lucky I was that, even after last night's slip-up, I wasn't in the least bit tempted. Not 10 minutes later, I’d finished eating my toastie and was questioning myself for why I’d let myself eat something so big, why did I add cheese? My mind instantly followed old ways of thinking as it took me straight to bingeworld again. I’d ruined everything already I may as well do it in style and binge. I could just get a bucket of icecream and a variety of cakes, get the desire out of my system and then literally get both them and the toastie out of my system.

I dodged that bullet at lunch by consuming a large quantity of sugar-free gum and I *think* I’ve gotten through this current situation but I’ll have to wait to see how it plays out. After the ATM I walked into another cafe and stared at the cakes and pies with tears brimming in my eyes. I then miraculously ordered nothing more than a skinny cap and then sat down and opened up my laptop.

This is just what’s happened each time I’ve lost weight, the only difference is how long until I catch it.

A couple of years ago my newfound healthy lifestyle change felt so deeply ingrained, I couldn’t possibly imagine binging and losing control ever again. I’d given away all my fat clothes, I’d rockclimbed, I’d done a 12km city to surf, I was shopping in “normal” clothes shops for the first time in my life. I’d changed my life forever. But even then, I lost control just as quickly and as easily as I did yesterday. It started as bulimic behaviour, I’d purge afterwards meaning I wasn’t gaining any weight so no one noticed. Everyone called me an inspiration, they marvelled at how fantastic I was looking. Only I could see the calluses on the back of my knuckles in my wedding photos. It stayed that way for months before the purges began to subside and the weight flew back on. I’m sure I’ve told you all this before, I have a feeling I’ll keep telling it until something in it starts to make sense to me.

Nothing about this does makes sense though, I know that. My logical right mind isn’t finding anything to grasp in all this, it’s not about logic it’s about emotion, anxiety and things I can’t put into words.

Whether it’s been 2 months since my last binge or 2 years, the ice is just as thin.

So for now all that’s happened is I’ve had cake and coffee for dinner and that's all. It isn’t great, but it’s not thousands of calories and a trip to a disgusting public bathroom.

Crisis over for now. I have my photography class in 20 minutes so I’m going to pack up my laptop walk across the road to the station and get on a train. One step at a time.