Sunday, July 15, 2007

In which all is quiet on the western front

Denial is very sneaky. I convinced myself yesterday that a handful of potato chips eaten 1/2 hour after lunch was still a continuation of lunch (convinced isnt the right word. That implies some kind of effort undertaken for me to believe it -- which there wasn't. Rationalized maybe?). Then about an hour later when I was getting some ice tea, I saw some candy my hub had brought home from work, and since most of it was gone, I rationalized finishing it off. When my husband became hungry for dinner at a normal time, I wondered where the time had gone -- I had been updating my antivirus on my computer and the ridiculous process took about 3 - 4 hours. Boo says, "you're not hungry because you've been eating all afternoon!" I was very defensive and minimized what I had eaten. After all, the eating disorder scientists define a binge as 1,500 calories or more, and I probably had about 500 calories. Later that night, I realized this was denial. But I also realized something that an OA had said on an e-mail list I subscribe to... something to the effect of "We moved beyond the drama to a solution." So, today, I acknowledge that I overate. I do not get defensive. I acknowledge that the symptom of denial was manifest, making me think the snacks were harmless. Today, I move on. I go to a meeting, I talk to others, share my ups and downs, and commit to the next meal being abstinent.
There doesn't need to be histrionics, hand wringing or panic. Of course I overate; I am a compulsive overeater. What am I going to do today so that I don't step in that hole again?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

In which distorted thinking is examined

One of my three jobs is teaching a Library Science class at a nearby university. Every year, the students are able to submit course evaluations towards the end of the class. The instructor receives the results of those evaluations months and months later.

Monday, I received a printout of the evaluation responses from last spring's class. It had rows for the questions: 1 - 11. Just the numbers. It had columns for the answers: A-E. Just the letters. The sheet explaining what the questions were and how the rating scale was set up was not included. All of the responses I got, however, were D's and E's. I immediately assumed that the A thru E responses were like grades, with A being the highest and E being failing (i believe this campus uses E's instead of F's).

So, for about an hour on Monday I was kind of flipping out. I thought, "Dammit I work so hard on that class, this class seemed positive and responsive to my instruction style, I am *not* doing this again even if they ask me, which they won't because I got D's and E's..." etc.


I recognized what I was doing. I was immediatley going into "I suck" mode based on a guess of what the answers meant. I soon saw that I was getting ahead of myself --I needed to see the evaluation questions before I knew the characteristics of the evaluations; but I wasn't able to stop the monkey chatter in my head.

Program teaches me not to sit in an isolated pool of worry and self doubt. Instead, we are to reach out, ask for help, and extend help to others. I called my friend who works at the University who is also an OA. She is an administrator, but she knows the drill. She gave me feedback that those evaluation forms don't usually come back all unsatisfactory. They come back with responses either all over the map (polarized) or all consistently good or pretty good. Last summer when I taught, I got one of those polarized evaluations. When I was done venting, she shared some of the b.s. that she is dealing with in her life. I gave her my perspective. She too was in "i suck" mode. We were able to support each other and mollify each other's anxieties.
Asked for help? Check. Extended help to others? Check. HP speaking to me through my administrator friend? Check. HP showing me I am not a complete fuckup by being able to offer her advice as well? Check.

Finally, today, I received the questions. The answers were a scale with "A" being "Strongly Disagree" and "E" being "Strongly Agree" . The questiosn were all things you would want people to agree with, like: "Professor is consistently prepared for class." "Professor has command of the subject matter." So my students (granted, only 5 students), all either agreed or strongly agreed with positive comments about my instruction capabilities.

Today I ask HP to help me recognize my thinking that is a distorted self image manifesting itself, and run those distortions by others to gain outside perspective.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

In which preparations are made for the week ahead

Starting to feel a little bit better than I did even last week. I had salad stuff that I hadn't made a salad with in the fridge. I've been buying the stuff all along, and then letting it wilt or rot while I get crap food for lunch. Just not into making a salad. Anyway, we needed lunch today and we are poor this weekend (from doing alot of landscaping the past two weeks: bricks and pea gravel and mulch all adds up, and then we bought flowers and a solar powered windmill -- it looks better than it sounds)... so my hub didn't want to do our recent habit of getting paninis or subs for lunch. So, I made up my mind to use the salad stuff if it wasn't spoiled. It was still ok, so I made salad and then put lunch meat turkey and ham and cheddar over the top, like a chef salad. Lunch meat is not ideal for me because they put alot of non meat in that meat, but it was the first time I made a big salad in months and months. I made a balsamic-olive oil-dijon-herb dressing.

It felt good chopping all the veggies. It felt good whisking the oil and vinegar and mustard. It felt good lingering over the salad for lunch and my husband happily eating something healthy. It was a choice, not an obligation. Something I wanted to do.

Later, I was pooped, and had to go grocery shopping. I wanted to get a mani/pedi also. So i went to the cheapie nail salon in the same plaza as the grocery store. Man, they always try to upsell you on the gel or acrylic or tips. Mostly I just want my nails shaped and my cuticles trimmed. Anyway, it was relaxing in there, and when I went to the supermarket, I was happily filling my cart with fruits and veggies, and not begrudgingly doing it. I thought about getting one or two of those bag dinners to have in case i lose energy this week, but I realized my hub was going to light the grill tonight. We use charcoal, and the strategy is always to grill as much as humanly possible for as long as the coals last. We'll just reheat grilled meat all week. No muss, no fuss.

I had a dream last night about work, my old job, and about the boyfriend I had at that time. My subconscious was telling me what i suspected about that situaton was true (that the boyfriend may have been encouraged by my boss at the time to date me -- long story, don't ask). I felt relaxed this morning, like it doesn't matter what the facts are surrounding all the secrecy at my old job. I'm never really going to know for sure what was going on behind the scenes. My suspicions are good enough.

What matters is that I have leftover feelings of being not included, of being left out, of being disregarded. These feelings translate into all of my affairs with other people: my current jobs, my friendships, OA. That's my so-called character defect - a kind of low self esteem, self pity, non assertive kind of thing.

I saw that movie Evan Almighty last night, and Morgan Freeman, who played god was saying. God doesn't give you patience, he gives you opportunities to be patient. It may be totally stupid to use messages in a forgettable movie as a rationalization for behavior, but nonetheless, I am going to look for opportnities to be confident, take care of myself, and assert myself. We'll see how it goes.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

In which things seem to be looking up

Hello, I am not sure what I am going to write today. When I first started blogging, I would put alot of thought into the posts and edit them and think of clever ways of phrasing; etc. I really took the writing part seriously. This new incarnation, I am just trying to write from the heart. I still worry a bit about grammar, but except for correcting some typos, what you see is basically my first pass at the post.

I hope everyone had a nice 4th of July. It rained all day here in upstate New York, so we skipped out on fireworks. We did have plans to get together for a meal with some neighbors. The wife is also in OA, and is maintaining a significant weight loss. Another couple, friends of the first couple, came as well. The wife of that couple does something like FA or OA HOW or some more stringent 12 step food recovery plan. So, when the barbecue came to the table there was a scale and measuring cups passed around along with the food.

I felt a bit out of place, because my ideal food plan requires me to *not* measure food. This is because before recovery, I had a compulsive behavior of measuring and counting calories, but using it as a justification to eat crap. Longtime readers will recall that my current dinner is to be this: 1/2 plate of vegetables, 1/4 plate lean protein and 1/4 plate whole grain carb.

This works very well for me, but I have been using the justification lately that Roseanne, the woman who started OA, defined abstinence as "three meals and nothing in between." I have been telling myself that the "three meals" can be anything as long as they are "moderate." For me this has proven to be a load of horse shit, as my "moderate" eating has caused me to gain 40 pounds.

Anyway, seeing my friends weigh and measure their whole foods made me a little bit more willing to do the divided plate thing once again. Both of them have long term success with their food plans. I *know* I feel better and have more energy when I eat whole foods and limit the processed crap. I *know* I am fuller when I eat a whole plate of healthy food than when I eat a bag of potato chips. I can do this, with the help of my friends in OA and my higher power.