We enter into young adulthood and have our first sexual experiences and that sometimes becomes the baseline for how all other partnerships are supposed to feel. I wanted to feel safe, accepted and celebrated in my relationships but it was impossible because I was unable to feel those exact emotions internally. So I ate those feelings and by doing so I stayed unsafe, unaccepted and uncelebrated.
I repeated a cycle that you may identify with. It starts with the seeking of a partner. It moves through a variety of distancing behaviors that succeed at creating separation. The separation actually feels a bit better because I feel less vulnerable and emotions feel more manageable. I am aware that intimacy requires vulnerability but I choose control. Shadow aspects of myself are well hidden with distance and any efforts to minimize the safe zone is met with resistance, and fear which spikes anxiety. Anxiety exists in the empty space before emotion.
Unpredictable emotion is almost unbearable but food is very bearable. Food is powerful because it distracts me from feeling emotions I wish to avoid. It directs my attention to physical sensations of taste, absent of rejection, and the feelings of fullness. That’s the purpose of the binge. It fills me up so that I do not feel empty. I feel enough, I feel satiated. Almost immediately afterwards I am disappointed in myself. So much so, that my partner doesn’t need to be disappointed in me. I am not worthy of love that I am not showing myself. I reject myself so my partner does not have to. As hours pass, and even through a carb-loaded digestibly uncomfortable slumber, fear re-enters the conscious and I am left with the same exact issues, only with the a dollop of self-loathing and a semi-genuine commitment to have a better eating day tomorrow. This was my cycle.
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