I am pretty stressed at the moment. A lot of things are up in the air and out of my control. Deadlines are approaching and I feel the imminent threat of grades... What is the one thing my brain is telling me?
Don’t eat.
This conclusion literally makes no sense to a rational brain. If anything, eating and nourishing my mind and body with nutritionally dense food is exactly what I should be doing. Nevertheless, Kevin is capitalising on my stress and proclaiming that this would be the antithesis of self-care.
I understand why I am thinking this and I know I shouldn’t act on it, but the thoughts persist. When I feel like I have no control, I know I can always turn to restriction. Food is the one thing that, according to my ED, I have autonomous power over. The neural pathway of flawed logic has been heavily reinforced by my disordered decisions. Even though Kevin may say that I have power over food and restriction is the answer, I know for a FACT that it is not. Decisions of restriction will always lead you down the rabbit hole and in reality, the food will end up having control over you.
My therapist and I have been working on making new pathways. If they are reinforced over time slowly they will become more worn and trodden than the ED ones. This semester I have been practising this in a few different ways such as going for a mindful walk, doing some morning yoga, or reading my book before bed. I like to take a day off on the weekend to decompress, have a change of routine, and then gear myself up for the week ahead. The issue currently is that work and life stresses have ramped up, which means I don’t have a “day off” per se.
After a bit of ranting and talking, I began to see through the fog of my black and white thinking. The metaphor of a balloon especially helped me gain a bit of clarity. Right now I am at full capacity, the latex is getting dangerously thin and I may pop. That means the best thing for me to do is intersperse my busy days with little self-care acts. I might not have a moment to completely let out all the air, but if I can just let out a little bit, I can stay afloat.