Numbing The Pain

Food makes me happy.  But, then again, it also makes me sad.  It’s also a huge source of stress for me.  I’ve heard it said by an obese person: “I’d rather have food than have sex.”  Wow.  Exactly how I feel.  I really couldn’t have put it any better than that.  Food is more substantial and more real to me. 

I know I hide my emotions from myself behind the food I eat.  I know that doing this is just damaging me and my body.  It’s damaging me in ways I can see and in ways I can’t see.  There’s the obvious damage in that I’m overweight.  Sure, I’ve lost about 50 pounds in a year and a half and I’ve gotten rid of my acid reflux problem.  Those are great steps in the right direction.  Somehow I need to propel myself into taking the final steps in that right direction and lose the remaining 30 pounds I need to lose to be at a healthy and comfortable weight for me.

The first of these final steps is, of course, getting a handle on my emotional overeating.  Over the past 2 weeks, I think I can count only 2 days where I didn’t overeat.  How sad is that?  Pretty freaking sad, I say.  I’ve got to change that. 

When I eat due to my emotions I go numb in every way possible.  I eat the food to comfort myself but it’s not really comforting me.  All it’s doing in reality is numbing me.  How does that help me?  It doesn’t.  I might as well be standing there telling myself lies.  All I’m doing is delaying the inevitable.  By denying myself my emotions all they’re doing is building up inside of me until they build up so much that they just explode out of me.  I’ve had emotional breakdowns before.  They are no fun.  I’d like to avoid going through yet another emotional breakdown. 

I’ve got to learn to recognize when I’m numbing myself from feeling emotions.  When I can recognize those moments, then I can truly start to help myself.  Because, when I can recognize those moments, then I can stop and question myself about what I’m feeling and why I’m feeling it and then maybe, just maybe, I can actually learn to actually FEEL my feelings again.   

When I watch shows like The Biggest Loser or Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss, I see how much pain these people are holding onto and hiding from themselves with the food they eat.  It makes me wonder, what could be so bad in my life that it has essentially shut down my emotions?  I mean, I had a pretty good childhood for the most part.  My parents instilled great values in me and taught me to take care of myself, but my dad was emotionally unavailable to me and my mom was overemotional in times of stress. 

The only thing I can think of is my love life.  Because of my emotionally distant dad, did I attempt to overcompensate by making myself too open and too available to the guys I’ve dated?  Did I do this to myself from the get go?  I think it’s a very real possibility that that is the truth of the matter.  I did this to myself and only I can make the necessary changes in my life and in myself to achieve the goals I want to achieve.  I have another 30 pounds between me and my goal weight.  I can do it.  I want to be at my goal weight by my birthday, that’s 6 months from now.  That’s totally doable.