Binge and Thoughts Behind It

Today, unexpectedly I had a binge. I feel cut off from these episodes, in the same way I cut off from unpredictable episodes in my home as a child. I can pretend on the surface that I am OK, that I am strong and will be OK, but on the inside, a tiny part of me is saying...I feel worthless. I feel like a failure. I feel like there is something wrong with me, and that's why I'm failing. I deserve this.

I'm reliving this pain over and over again, from my past. It never got resolved.

I'm trying very hard to stuff down the real me, the vulnerabilities. That's why I binge. And now I feel emotionally numb, just like in the past. And I feel abandoned, but this time instead of by my parents I feel abandoned by myself.

I'm trying to think objectively back to when it happened. I was at work and it was "treat day." First I had a few bites of some goodies. Then after my break I was feeling frustrated and trapped and stuck, and all of a sudden wanted the food. And I was at work and I felt trapped, like I couldn't eat but desperately wanted to.

I had some more treats, even snuck into the break room for a "bathroom break" to do it. And then as I walked back, I asked myself what was going on. I realized that I was scared, scared of being exposed, of being seen. My desire to keep bingeing got a lot weaker, and that was because I gave myself a little bit of the care it was desperate for. A voice, a tiny voice, to speak its mind, to say "hey I feel really neglected, I feel really worthless, I feel suffocated." A little while later, the thoughts started again. I had the thought that what if all this recovery business is also in my head, like before. What if I start deceiving myself like I did in the past, convinced I'm happy but still repressing emotions? What if those beliefs still lead me to that? And I felt so completely helpless, helpless over the powerful beliefs in my core that I was soooo unaware of and soooo powerless to stop. Beliefs I disown, beliefs I neglect, beliefs I don't even acknowledge. But today, through all of it, I DID acknowledge it. And it was really awful, I felt horrible, and that's an area I need to work on. As mindful as I am now, once I'm really in a dark place, I have distorted thoughts and judge what I see. Any thoughts about being ashamed or the binge being "bad" will continue to lead me down to the road of avoidance and destruction. I have to really listen to myself, to go into that darkness, be as warm, welcoming, and objective as possible when I begin to experience those beliefs and emotions, to heal from them. I have to ACCEPT them. I have to stop being ASHAMED of them. Today what happened wasn't my feelings being bad, it was my ego/my distorted thoughts taking over. THOSE are the powerless forces, THOSE are the bad guys, if anyone. My feelings deserve to be heard, my beliefs deserve to be voiced. And I deserve to heal.