The struggle to write about the struggle.

I wanted this blog to be a resource; I wanted to write meaningful posts about progress, tips, support and encouragement. My end goal is to help everyone who’s every felt less than enough – be enough.

Then I ramble about wanting to eat all the chocolate like a savage.

I want to update you on my no progress, but then I don’t see the value – the worth, my worth.

And to be fair, there is progress; it’s just not on the scale, but I feel better. It’s also hard to brag about immeasurable progress. Can you see my lowered anxiety? Can you feel my sense of security in my relationship? Do you sleep soundly with me at night?

It’s also hard to share the successes, when my biggest struggle is the grey area (or the gray matter, if we’re being literal). I live in a world of right and wrong, black and white, success and failure.

I obsessively follow the rules and/or obsessively beat myself up about breaking them.

These obsessions affect my mood, my value and my life.

If I am trying to lose weight, eating one cookie is failing. It doesn’t matter that it was a homemade healthier version, or that it was only one, or that it was one in a month of no cookies... I ate the cookie I failed. I ate the cookie I am a deserving failure, that shouldn’t ever smile again. I ate the cookie and ruined everything, I let my husband down, I am forced to lie to him about the cookie... all of this anger and disappointment only leads to one thing... the strict ying to the lose yang – eat more cookies. You’re already a failure you might as well have another sweet taste of failure, because you only live once, carpe diem and all that.

And then, because I am all or nothing, I might as well eat all the cookies, so there are no cookies to fail again the next day (unless there are). I don’t even taste them anymore, as I quickly eat all the cookies and hide the garbage before I get caught; before I have to explain that I ate all the cookies, because I am a fat miserable slob who eats all the cookies and then hides it and cries about not losing the weight.

That’s my cycle.

That’s where I get stuck, so I create more rules, break them and start all over.

This week I made the resolution to cut back on bread, I had to add carbs to my diet, but a sandwich for every meal isn’t the way to do it. Even though the bread is a whole grain sourdough, the meat is fresh home cooked chicken in an olive sauce, with light cheese, cucumber and butter lettuce. It’s still a sandwich and still a fail.

Lots of wonderful people tell me I am too hard on myself, but that just weakens the cracks. I let there support be an excuse to continuing failing. 

I want this. I want to hit my goals and put this all behind me, I want to be fit and strong. I want to help others, but I am caught up in trying to help myself.

This post is just a taste of how an Obsessive Compulsive Bulimic thinks about every day, every detail - in exhausting detail. How easy it is to get lost in the details and lose the progress, to get swallowed up by the mistakes. 

And this is my progress, this is what I am working on; acknowledging these thoughts and not allowing them to take over. So I can eat ONE cookie and still be a success. I am not there yet, but I feel closer.