I am struggling writing this post. Because it requires me to open up and dive deep into a subject that I am afraid of. Emotions. When I am afraid, I don’t run, I face it head on. That is what I have done with my illnesses, my narrowing trachea, and even the many terrors in my life. Emotional Hygiene is a subject that I want to talk about. My brain started processing through my thoughts about emotional hygiene after I watched Winch’s Ted Talk about this exact subject. Opening up a can of worms and I am having a hard time containing them again. What to do? Well, I will tell you, perhaps, it is time for me to face the fact that I do have emotions and that I don’t need to be fearful of them. It is time to open up and get them out, so that I don’t cling to food as my refuge.
At the beginning of December I made the decision to face my food issues. That means facing the fact that I am an emotional eater. That means diving into my emotions, dealing with them, come up with tools that I can use instead of food for those days when I’m having a hard time. Many of my emotions deal with rejection, shame, and the chaotic nature of my illness, especially when it comes to my throat. Yes, I am tired of my trachea and the havoc I’m in because of its unpredictable and wearing presence in my life. I love my doctors, all of them, but I am also frustrated by them. Especially, the yo-yoing of deciding on one thing and then changing their minds and deciding to do something else. I will give you an example, when my beloved ENT Dr. Anderson and I discussed doing a tracheal resectioning. I had to make peace with the fact that I may lose my ability to talk. Now, he is wavering against doing the resectioning and instead wants to do laser surgery and using a drug called Metamyacin-C to stop cell growth. Yes, I would like this option, but the feeling like I am going around in circles is frustrating to me. You see, we talked about the laser surgery and the Metamyacin-C a year before and he decided he didn’t want to do this. Ugh! I am frustrated. I love that he is a researcher and moves and works slow. I do appreciate that. But I also want something done and I don’t want to wait ten years to get it done. My throat is scary. I have been processing the fact that many doctors, nurses, and people find me scary and treat me like I am a hot mess. When I show up in the hospital, they run, literally. That does not make me feel that good about myself at all. I wish that someone in the medical field would come up and say to me. This sucks, I’m sorry, do you need anything? That would be so nice.
Don’t get me wrong, if I had the ability I would run away too. I can’t, so I am left with dealing with the mess of my health. Why am I telling you this? Well, feeling this way, I eat, I eat because I am lonely, I eat because I am frustrated, and I eat because I don’t know what else to do. I just eat.
If you have been looking at my Twitter feed and my Facebook feed then you will see that I have been posting a bunch of articles on emotional eating. The key for me will be finding different things I can do instead of turning to food for my comfort. This morning while I was having my time with Jesus, I read this verse: John 6:48-51 “I am the bread of life that gives life-the Living Bread. Your forefathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and yet they died. But this is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat of it and never die. I, myself am this living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and also the bread that I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh, body.” Jesus must be, will be, my life, not food. He will be my comforter, not food. He will be my friend, not food. He will be my encourager, not food.
This week has been tough for me, since making the choice to look at and heal my emotional eating habit. Things have been hitting me left and right. First, another delay in a final decision about my throat has made its head known to me. Frustrating. Then of course, watching a documentary that brought up my mother’s death when I was 13 happened. I need some humor in my life. I need a belly laugh. Thankfully that happened tonight with some great friends. I also watched “Inside Out” finally, a movie that I have been wanting to see for quite some time. I finally was able to. Love it. I am happy to report, not once did I overeat or eat until I felt sick. I limited my eating to the meals that I needed for my blood sugars. That is progress. Here are some articles that I have found on emotional eating that I found helpful: I will leave you with these to ponder. Until next time, breathe well my friends.
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