Thursday, July 05, 2007

My life as a food addict and a liar

I just sat in my car outside and abandoned building in a strip mall and ate a double serving size of chocolate cake from the local grocery store, so that I could throw out the evidence of the cake's existence (the package and the fork used to eat it with) in the trash can in front of me. I drove home, unloaded the rest of the groceries -- which included many healthy items that went into the fridge -- and three packs of peanut butter M&Ms that went into a secret hiding place in the guest room. I then loaded all the recycling into the paper bag I brought from grocery store (which still contained the receipt from the store) and took it to the garbage. There! All evidence gone. And when I came back in ... I moved my tennis shoes from the location where they were this morning when my husband left to a different spot, so the he will believe the lie that I actually went to the gym this morning to work out.

Thus is my life as a food addict and a liar. We won't even go into the ongoing online conversations I am having with men about sex or why it is I need to lie to my husband rather than tell him the truth.

I had been doing so well in recovery -- in all aspects. Then suddenly I stopped praying first thing every morning, stopped doing daily meditations, cut back on meetings, began to isolate, and here I am -- eating chocolate cake (which is just one in a long line of binge foods I have eaten over the past few days) and putting more effort into hiding my behavior rather than change it. I find it hard now to ask for the willingness to begin my program again. I want to continue to get attention from strangers who can tell me sight unseen that I am the sexiest woman they've ever known. I want them the want me to the point of frustration ... only for me to decide to go back into recovery from sexual addiction.

The food plays into all of this ... because it is my comfort from loneliness ... and often in these online endeavours I am rejected -- often because the person who was so keen on me before seeing my picture, suddenly becomes extremely disinterested, sometimes to the point of not wanting to talk after seeing my picture. So with each encounter I am putting my self-esteem, which is already in the toilet, on the line. And when it is raped (well, they say you can't rape the willing right?) one more time, I am lonely and hurt and turn to the food.

It's a cycle that goes on and on. One that only recovery can stop ... and recovery comes one day, one decision at a time.

1 comment:

Jen R. said...

It's tough to get out of the cycle. Really tough. Please start praying again...reaching out again..when you are ready.