Bad Patterns
TW: Binge eating, anxiety
Since I was around 4 years old, I’ve always been aware of my weight. From my grandad calling me a stuffing ball at family barbecues to my brother calling me a fatty to my mum taking away food whilst telling me ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’. It may seem like a very obvious realisation, but recently I’ve fully understood the pattern of my weight gain. I gain weight when I’m stressed and anxious, when I feel rejected, when I’m depressed, when I’m self-sabotaging myself — basically it’s the after effect of my mind deciding I want to abuse my body because I don’t respect myself and feel like I don’t deserve respect. And before I go on, I don’t believe that weight gain should be scrutinised. I don’t believe in the ‘ideal body type’ or staying between a certain weight range, I just believe it’s important to be confident, happy and healthy, whatever that looks like for you! It would be a totally different conversation if me gaining weight was the after effect of an experience where I was accepting myself more, loving myself and had a healthy relationship with food, but at this current point in time that’s unfortunately something I can’t really relate to.
I never knew I suffered from anxiety as a kid, but looking back I definitely did. I would skip all my classes in high school that made me feel uncomfortable due to not understanding the work or finding the teachers overwhelmingly intimidating. What makes it worse is as an adult I’ve just found out I have ADHD, so in all these lessons where my teachers accused me of being lazy despite my best efforts, I actually just had a neurodevelopmental disorder that was never supported. The severity of my anxiety was really highlighted last week when I had my first round of intensive driving lessons from 2–7pm for 6 days in a row. I had anticipated some nerves and discomfort, but the anxiety I experienced triggered a lot of childhood emotions for me. Last week I was having panic attacks, needed a lot of alone time when in the house and couldn’t even speak or make eye contact with my parents because I just needed to shut down. I shut myself in my bedroom and started binging on junk food, something very familiar to me. My binging started when I was around 10 years old whenever my household became hostile. I’d eat ’til I was sick and then I’d eat even more. It was a strange relief and distraction to what was happening at home. I would hide my packets of chocolate, crisps, cookies, cake, croissants etc. under my bed, behind my bookcase, in my drawers, wherever I could find any space. In fact, I remember being absolutely mortified when I came home from my Scouts Summer Camp because my mum had completely redecorated my bedroom (bright pink by the way which really isn’t my colour) and instead of being elated that my room had been decorated for the first time since before I was born, my stomach sank knowing that my secret must have been out. There’s no way you would have been able to move an inch of my room without finding an empty packet of something or other.
Before Covid-19, I was living in a horrible housing situation and I had a very stressful situation at work (that I shall absolutely tell you about another day — of course it involved an older man making me incredibly uncomfortable) and my weight had absolutely ballooned. I was unrecognisable — the heaviest I had ever been, my self-worth was in tatters and I just thought to myself ‘when on earth is this cycle going to end?!’. Strangely, the pandemic intervened, because I had lost all my freelancing work and had no other choice but to move back home. You can imagine that moving back home after seven years was a little shock to the system. Your parents still treat you like your 15, you sometimes revert to behaving like your younger self, and honestly you’re learning who each other are again and it can be a bit of a gruelling process. Though this was very difficult, and I also had to overcome the fact that my parents really don’t know who I am, this was actually a blessing. It gave me a lot of time to self-reflect, think about who I want to be and I really started to prioritise my health. I wasn’t binging, I was getting excited about preparing and eating tasty, good, healthy food, I was doing something active everyday and I finally was looking at myself in the mirror saying positive affirmations that I actually believed.
Slowly and surely, despite all my great work, this has very gradually deteriorated, because what I haven’t learnt yet is how to continue prioritising my health through situations I find very stressful. As soon as my parents’ relationship began to crack and they couldn’t keep the façade up anymore, all the goals and positive routines I had created for myself had disappeared unconsciously. After one night of binging after my driving mock test that I failed horribly, I looked in the mirror and thought ‘again?! How have you done this to yourself again?!’. I saw my sad face, swollen belly, spotty skin and double chin and thought I can’t keep abusing myself anymore, I deserve more, I deserve better. So today, for the first time in a while, I went on a 3 mile run. Yes, I was almost sick, but I did it! And it was the first time in a while where I had actually woken up and gotten out of bed by 8am to do something active. When I got home, I then even went skipping outside (for 5 minutes and felt like I was having a heart attack, but again, at least that’s something). A great friend of mine recommended a book ‘How to do the work’ by Dr Nicole Lepera that triggered my early morning activities today. It reminded me that I’m the only one that can do the work and break my bad patterns. I don’t even care or want to be slim, I want to be healthy. I want to be able to deal with stress and anxiety in a healthy way. I want to get back on the horse whenever I’ve fallen off instead of punishing myself for it. I want to form healthy relationships with others. I want to feel good about my body. I want to have a loving intimate relationship and stop self-sabotaging connections I make at risk of in the future of having sex because I don’t like my body. I want to be unapologetically me.
I’ve made some promises to myself today that I really do hope to keep:
- Even if I feel like I hate myself, I can’t tell myself that or treat myself hatefully
- Stop binging (treat myself with one item/ portion on the weekend if I want)
- Keep reading ‘How to do the work’ every evening before bed and DO the exercises
- Keep writing intentions daily in my diary and work towards them
- Instead of binging, write my thoughts and feelings down, and even turn them into a piece (just like the one I’m writing now)
As you’ve gathered, I’m nowhere near perfect (as is no-one else in the world) but I’m really going to try and keep these promises to myself. All we can do is try and try again, learn and grow and remind ourselves what is important. I don’t think my issues with anxiety will ever fully go away, but I am making it my mission to learn how to manage it and deal with it so I don’t keep on punishing myself. And if you have or are going through something like this too, I really do recommend the book — it’s uplifting, empowering and easy to digest! I wish you the best of luck,
Efemena x
