When I was a child, I always prided myself on keeping my promises. While eating was the one thing I could control day in and day out, I still had the occasional opportunity to make a promise – and keep it.
On Sunday, I made a promise. And while I don’t want to keep it at this moment, I still hold to that childhood pride of never breaking a promise.
I swore to you that I would take a picture of everything I put in my mouth. The two times I haven’t been able to, it was because I didn’t have my camera with me and because of weird disappearing pictures. (I took the picture; it’s just not on my memory card…)
But there is something I didn’t take a picture of, and it’s not because of technical difficulties.
I’m a binge eater. I don’t say that as an excuse so much as a preface that I hope will help you to understand.
You see, when I talk about my binge eating experiences, it’s always my fear that people won’t stand the utter loss of control when it comes to a binge.
When I was making brownies last night, I binged. I binged not in terms of size but in terms of the lack of control. I made the brownies… and lost control. My logical mind knew I didn’t actually want the brownies, I couldn’t stop myself from licking the spatula. From eating not one, but two spoonfuls of brownie mix.
Two spoonfuls of brownie mix, not huge in size but huge in the amount of guilt it gives me. Huge in how I am reminded that my binge eating rises from emotional issues that won’t just go away if I don’t deal with them. Huge in reminding me that I have come a long way, but I have a long way to go.
Now that I’ve typed it, I’m not sure why I was feeling so afraid of typing this here. It’s all part of the journey, after all, and the emotional blow it has dealt me won’t be forgotten anytime soon.
Sometimes it amazes me that we can be told things hundreds of times over, but we will only truly *get* things in our own time.
I’ve started reading the book