Tales of a (Recovering) Disordered Eater

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a terrible foot irritation (I finally went to the doc today since my home remedies weren’t working–it’s ezcema!) which has been waking me up more often than usual. Sometimes it has led to a midnight “snack,” but not always.

So anyway, at 1:30 this morning I woke up, used the bathroom, slathered my home remedy til I could see a doc–hydrocortisone cream– on my feet, washed my hands. I checked my bank account (yup, I got paid!), wrote some e-mails.

But I simply couldn’t sleep; there was something else on my mind. My brain turned to food.

I thought about it for a few minutes. Am I really and truly hungry? (Yes. I’d had a bad reaction to dinner and my stomach was not doing well; a little food wouldn’t kill me).

Did I need to eat? (Perhaps not. Lord knows I have fasted for the Jewish holidays every year and lived to tell the tale).

Would it be a bad thing to eat? (Per my therapy session, NO! FOOD ISN’T BAD!)

Remembering her words and the cognitive behavioral therapy exercise we’d done (after which she’d emphasized that food isn’t bad, even snacking at night isn’t bad…it’s not black and white …) seriously took the stigma away from it!

And since I was making a wise choice, I didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt!! Amazing. Honestly, amazing.

So I took a small spoonful of fat-free sugar-free pudding, and then popped a handful of grapes and the remaining five cherries my husband had left for me into my mouth, and went back to bed.

Amazingly, I woke up this morning guilt-free, and had a great session at the gym.

The pre-therapy Melissa would have beaten herself up for having woken and eaten.

But this in-therapy Melissa realizes that waking and eating isn’t the end of the world, especially if it’s on healthy foods that are fitting into my “food budget” of the day.

I feel like a million bucks! (Let’s hope my poor feet do, too!)