I just want to post a great big THANK YOU to all of you *****sponded to my post yesterday (In A Really Bad Place)! I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to respond to everyone individually, but my computer crashed yesterday morning just as I was starting to respond to posts. I am humbled, awed and honored by your outpouring of support and empathy! I am saving the entire thread to read when I am feeling low! This morning I have a renewed determination to fight this addiction. For today, I will treat myself with kindness. I will make good food choices and not give in to feelings of anger and chaos. I will fight this good fight one more day, one day at a time! Thank you all again so much for your love and support! Lelina

Lelina, Good for you - a more positive frame of mind and that ain't easy to dredge up when it's during "one of those times"......Some days it is one minute at a time for me........just come here and post it........I promise to read all day and check on you! Just for today....... Jeannie

Hi Jeannie! Thank you for caring and for checking on me! I especially loved your response to my post yesterday; definitely not too esoteric - I could relate to so much of what you said! Are you a writer? You should be one if you're not; you're very talented with words! Today has been a very good day so far. I am avoiding self-destructive thoughts and behaviors one hour at a time. Thank you again for your words of wisdom - your support means so much to me! Lelina

Awww Lelina You're welcome. I heard a long time ago we teach what we most need to learn......So, to be able to try to express my own "stuff" in an effort to share your pain, I learn about me in the same process. Imagine having to do this without any assistance from another human being who is having a similar walk. Impossible! I'm not that strong. I want to be a writer. I day I have a book inside that is bursting to get out, but I do nothing to help it be born.....I am waiting for what I don't know......but if I don't do it soon.....I will die with it. LOL... I love to write. It is the only time I feel that I fully communicate. I am not that great verbally, but if I have the time to write it I can usually get my point across... Today is a good day for me too....I decided today I would give myself permission for whatever thought or feeling came my way and not make myself bad or wrong about it......just notice it and find it interesting. Life is good today...and I'm not all that sorry about who and what I am.....in fact today, it's pretty damned good. Jeannie

Jeannie, I'm glad you're having a good day too! I know what you mean about "giving yourself permission" to have your thoughts and feelings. I tend to have a lot of repressed anger because I want to be "perfect" (the perfect mother, wife, friend, etc.) but I feel that I fall woefully short. I tend to put everyone else's feelings and needs before my own, and then end up feeling horribly resentful. It's so liberating to realize that it's okay to be angry sometimes, and that it's okay not to be perfect! As for your writing, I say go for it! I'm a struggling non-published author myself. It's all I ever wanted to be "when I grow up". Unfortunately, I've received so many rejection letters, my self-confidence as a writer has suffered. Most of my "writing" now only goes on in my head. I KNOW I've written a few best-sellers in my mind over the years - if only it were that easy to get the words out on paper! It also doesn't help that I procrastinate quite a bit and fear failure! Ahhh, the joys of being disfunctional! Wait, now I'm getting into negative self-talk! Ah, hell ... Lelina

Darlin' You and I both have an issue with the definition of balance don't we??? LOLOLOL I know for me one thought that will catch me unawares is 'If I am not that, (perfect, good, complete, caring, thoughtful, ad nauseum) then what the hell am I" .... and of course MY PEA BRAIN takes it to no good.....like there's nothing in the middle, re: HUMAN!!! LOL we are a piece of work aren't we??? Make you a deal? Let's e mail each other one paragraph every now and then that we've created? Critique each other and share ideas........ Whaddayathink? Jeannie

That sounds great Jeannie! I'd love to see some of what of you've written! I've got to wrack my brain now as to what I'm going to send to you! I've got to get off the computer for a little while, but I'll be back! Talk to you later. Lelina

You can do it. I tend to think of food as nutrition now days rather than thinking about how good something taste. I steer away from tasty foods because I'm afraid I will over eat. My diet is rather boring most of the time consisting of meat, lettuce and Italian ff dressing. Carbs are demons for me because I just want more of them. Eat to live, don't live to eat. Hope you have a good day!

Hi Pat! Thank you for your support! For the first year or so, it was "easy" to look at food as just nutrition and nothing more. B.E.D. is a cunning disease, though. Just when you think you're "cured", it rears its ugly head. I'm somewhat of a rebel, I guess, because while I AM afraid of losing control, I refuse to live the rest of my life denying myself certain foods. It's just too overwheming for me to think to myself "I can never have such-and-such again". This would put me into panic mode, and I would then go on to eat everything in sight out of the fear that I might never have it again. FOR ME, it usually works better to tell myself that there is nothing I CAN'T eat, I just choose NOT TO eat it at this time. It's a mind game, I know, but it usually works. Granted, this hasn't been working so well lately, so maybe my thinking is flawed! Thanks again for caring, and I hope you have a nice day! Lelina